Spacewalker John D. Olivas works in view of spacewalker James Reilly's helmet camera with Earth in the background during a spacewalk in this view from NASA TV June 11, 2007. The spacewalking pair will activate the new S3/S4 truss segment during the planned six-hour spacewalk. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    WASHINGTON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Two astronauts who are members of the Atlantis crew completed the second spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Wednesday, successfully accomplishing their scheduled tasks, according to mission updates released by NASA.

    Mission specialists Patrick Forrester and Steve Swanson kicked off their excursion at 2:28 p.m. EDT (1728 GMT). The first major task of the spacewalk was to assist with the retraction of the starboard array on the Port 6 truss. The crew retracted half of the array bays and will send commands on Thursday to retract the remaining bays.

    The orbital duo then continued to activate the newly installed truss segment. They prepared the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) on the new truss for operation by removing the remaining launch restraints. The SARJ will allow the arrays to track the sun.

    They returned into the Quest airlock at 9:44 p.m. EDT, according to the Mission Control Center located in the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

    Back on the ground, NASA managers on Wednesday decided to repair the thermal blanket gap on the third spacewalk, scheduled for Friday.

    NASA extended the Atlantis mission by two days and added an extra spacewalk.

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