Station astronauts finish third spacewalk

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla, Feb 8 (Reuters) Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station left the outpost today for a spacewalk to pack up blankets and covers no longer needed to keep gear warm.

It was the third spacewalk in nine days and the most intense work NASA has ever attempted on the station without a shuttle crew present.

''You did an excellent job,'' spacewalk coordinator Chris Looper at Mission Control told the crew as they wrapped up their work.

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Michael Lopez-Alegria opened the station's hatch at 8:26 am EST (1856 IST), about half an hour earlier than planned, and were back inside the airlock 6-1/2 hours later.

''It's a beautiful day,'' Williams said before floating out to begin her fourth spacewalk, a record number for a woman.

The astronauts' main job was to remove and discard sun shields no longer needed to keep equipment warm. NASA changed the orientation the station flies in relative to the sun and the shrouds could have caused heat to build up and damage the systems.

Williams and Lopez-Alegria folded up the bulky covers into two bundles, which on Earth would have weighed about 20 pounds and tossed them overboard to burn up as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

''I can throw it right at the sun,'' Lopez-Alegria joked, as he took aim before tossing the first bundle.

''Pretty nice,'' added Williams, watching the shield float away.

The spacewalkers then finished connecting a power cable that will allow visiting space shuttles to tap into the space station's electrical system and stay about three days longer than previously.

The also worked on a cargo holder that will be needed during future missions.

During the two previous spacewalks, the astronauts hooked up a new cooling system for the 100 billion dollar, multinational space station.

It was the ninth spacewalk for station commander Lopez-Alegria, which ties him for the most spacewalks by a US astronaut. He will move to the top of that list after another spacewalk planned for February 22, which he will conduct with the station flight engineer, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

REUTERS DKS BST0252