Astronauts complete walkabout

Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station yesterday, routing several hundred feet of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by Nasa.

It was the third spacewalk in just over a week for Americans Terry Virts and Butch Wilmore, and the quickest succession of spacewalks since Nasa’s former shuttle days.

The advance work was needed for the manned spacecraft under development by Boeing and SpaceX. A pair of docking ports will fly up later this year, followed by the capsules themselves, with astronauts aboard, in 2017.

Virts reported some water in his helmet for the second time in as many spacewalks. He stressed it was ‘‘not a big deal’’ and said there was no need to hurry out of his suit.

Virts and Wilmore installed two sets of antennas yesterday, as well as 122 metres of cable for this new communication system.

It was complicated, hand-intensive work, yet the astronauts managed to wrap up more than an hour early yesterday, for a five-hour spacewalk. Their three outings spanned 19 hours.

‘‘You guys have done an outstanding job,’’ mission control radioed, ‘‘even for two shuttle pilots.’’

Yesterday’s 418 kilometre-high action unfolded 50 years to the month after the world’s first spacewalk.

Soviet Alexei Leonov floated out into the vacuum of space on March 18, 1965, beating America’s first spacewalker, Gemini 4’s Edward White II, by just 21⁄ months. Leonov is now 80. White died in the Apollo 1 fire on the launch pad in 1967.

Nasa astronaut Barry ‘‘Butch’’ Wilmore, commander of Expedition 42, is caught by the camera as the Earth’s surface passes by in the background of the International Space Station during a space walk to set up data and powerlines for new crew capsules on the station.

‘‘It’s amazing . . . to see how far we’ve come from the very first steps outside,’’ Virts said.

Yesterday – just like last Wednesday – a little water got into Virts’ helmet once he was back in the air lock and the chamber was being repressurised.

Virts said it seemed to be about the same amount of water, maybe slightly more, but dried quickly. He didn’t need any towels this time when his helmet came off.

‘‘I couldn’t feel it on my skin. I could just see the thin film on the visor,’’ he told mission control.

Engineers concluded last week it was the result of condensation during the repressurisation of the air lock, and a safe and well-understood circumstance that had occurred several times before with the same spacesuit. Virts was never in danger either day, according to Nasa, and no water leaked into his helmet while he was outdoors. Wilmore’s much newer suit functioned perfectly.

The Nasa spacewalk was 50 years after the first such walk by the Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov.