Crew starts final spacewalk

WASHINGTON: Two astronauts ventured into open space yesterday to install cameras on the International Space Station's new Japanese laboratory during the final spacewalk of the US shuttle Endeavour mission.

Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn floated out of the ISS about an hour earlier than planned at 11.33 GMT (about 7.30 pm Beijing time) as they began the mission's fifth spacewalk, which was expected to last six-and-a-half hours.

While Mashburn secures multi-layer insulation around the station's two-armed robot, the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator known as DEXTRE, Cassidy will separate the power channels shared by two of the station's four gyroscopes.