Astronauts Embark on Final Spacewalk

March 22, 2008 -- Endeavour's astronauts embarked on the fifth and final spacewalk of their mission Saturday, this time to attach a 50-foot inspection pole to the International Space Station for use by the next shuttle visitors.

Michael Foreman and Robert Behnken floated out the hatch late in the afternoon as the linked shuttle and station soared more than 200 miles above the Pacific. They planned to spacewalk the night away.

"Spacewalk No. 5 out of five. It's going to be a great one," said their commander, Dominic Gorie.

The shuttle astronauts used the laser-tipped inspection boom at the beginning of their 16-day mission and again Friday night to check for any damage to their spaceship. It's become a routine safety procedure ever since the 2003 Columbia accident.

Discovery won't have room for a boom when it flies in May; the Japanese Kibo lab is so big it will take up the entire payload bay. So Endeavour's astronauts needed to leave theirs behind.

Besides securing the boom to the outside of the orbiting complex, Foreman and Behnken were going to inspect a jammed rotating joint that has restricted the use of a set of solar wings for months, and take another crack at hanging some scientific experiments to the European lab, Columbus.