IN WHAT was billed as NASA’s riskiest ever space walk, astronauts on the International Space Station successfully repaired a damaged solar panel on Saturday after spending 7 hours dangling on the end of a robotic arm. This was as far from an airlock as any astronaut has ever ventured – had any spacesuit malfunctioned, there might not have been enough time to make it back to safety.
Programme manager Wayne Hale called it “one of the most complex repair tasks that has ever been done in the agency’s history”.
Previous daring spacewalks include a 1973 attempt by Skylab astronauts to repair…
