NASA astronauts complete spacewalk which was postponed due to debris risk

(NEW YORK) — Two NASA astronauts completed an hours-long spacewalk on Thursday morning that was earlier postponed due to a risk of space debris.

Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron left the hatch at 6:15 a.m. EST and successfully conducted a spacewalk that lasted 6 hours and 32 minutes to replace a faulty antenna.

The duo replaced “a degrading SASA unit with a spare onboard,” NASA tweeted.

The spacewalk ended at 12:47 p.m. EST with both the astronauts back in the hatch.

The astronauts also conducted “get-ahead tasks” during their spacewalk, NASA tweeted.

“It was awesome,” Barron said about the first spacewalk of her career.

The spacewalk was scheduled for Tuesday morning but was delayed hours before the stipulated start time after NASA got a “debris notification.”

The source of the debris has not been confirmed yet.

This spacewalk marked the 245th spacewalk for NASA and was a part of Expedition 66, a seven-member crew that will be in space till March 2022. It was Marshburn’s fifth spacewalk, NASA said.

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