NASA Astronauts Complete Spacewalk

Astronauts conduct a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna on the International Space Station (ISS), Dec. 2, 2021 / NASA. Two NASA astronaut...

Astronauts conduct a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna on the International Space Station (ISS), Dec. 2, 2021 / NASA.

Two NASA astronauts completed an hours-long spacewalk on Thursday morning that was earlier postponed due to a risk of space debris.  NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron stepped out of the ISS airlock early Thursday to replace the faulty antenna, used to communicate voice and data to ground control. 

They 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.

NASA astronauts conduct spacewalk that was postponed due to debris / NASA.

"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.

The operation was expected to last six-and-a-half hours. The spacewalk had originally been scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed late Monday after NASA said it had received a notification of space debris that it needed to assess. The space agency said once it determined the debris did not pose a risk, the operation was rescheduled for Thursday. 

It was not immediately clear whether the debris field that prompted the spacewalk to be postponed was related to a Russian anti-satellite missile test two weeks ago. That event created a debris field that forced ISS crew members to seek shelter in their escape capsules as a precaution.