Alpha crew wraps up spacewalk

Two Alpha crewmembers grapple with Russian crane (upper left).

By Richard Stenger
CNN Sci-Tech

(CNN) -- New residents of the international space station took their first stroll outside their orbiting home to relocate a Russian cargo crane and install a ham radio antenna.

Cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and astronaut Carl Walz, wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits, completed the six-hour float about at 10 p.m. EST on Monday.

The spacewalk was one of four planned during the crew's five-month tour, which began in December.

The first order of business was to move a 45-foot (13.6-meter) Russian crane from a temporary storage position outside a U.S. module to the docking compartment of the Russian control module, where an identical crane already is installed.

The docking compartment air lock serves as the doorway for spacewalks conducted from the Russian side of the space station.

In the future, the two cranes will be used together to move equipment and spacewalkers outside the 17-story orbiting complex.

The Alpha crew's Carl Walz, from left, Daniel Bursch and Yuri Onufrienko

After that job, Onufrienko and Walz placed an amateur radio antenna on a handrail at the end of the Russian service module.

Another spacewalk is set for later this month. On the January 25 excursion, the other Alpha resident, U.S. astronaut Dan Bursch, will accompany Onufrienko.

Onufrienko, Walz and Bursch are the fourth crew to live in Alpha, which has been continuously occupied since November 2000.

The unfinished station, a project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan, could cost upward of $100 billion if built as planned. But multibillion dollar cost overruns and shrinking federal budgets could force NASA, the primary organizer, to scale back further construction.

Monday's spacewalk was the 32nd to help assemble the space station, the seventh from the station itself.