STS-125 Astronauts Conducting First Spacewalk

Astronauts John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel began the first of five STS-125 spacewalks at 8:52 a.m. EDT.

Grunsfeld is wearing a spacesuit marked with solid red stripes. He has five previous spacewalks in support of Hubble during STS-103 and STS-109.

This is Feustel’s first spacewalk. He is wearing an all white spacesuit.

Mike Massimino and Michael Good will work inside the shuttle as the intravehicular officers, or spacewalk choreographers. Megan McArthur will work with the spacewalkers from the inside to operate the shuttle’s 50-foot-long robotic arm as needed.

Before proceeding to the task of removing the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC 2, and installing WFC III, the spacewalkers will do setup work. They will release latches, set up a foot restraint on the robotic arm, install a fixture to temporarily hold equipment and the berthing and positioning system post that will protect the telescope’s solar arrays from vibration while the spacewalkers are working.