"It's quite a planet we live on," exclaimed James Voss, before he and fellow astronaut Jeffrey Williams finished repairing and modifying the outside of International Space Station's (ISS) two modules in six hours 44 minutes.

Voss is on his fourth flight in space, Williams on his first.

The spacewalk goes down in history as the 85th made by US astronauts -- equivalent to 304 hours -- and is the fifth spacewalk involving the ISS.

A total of 1,700 hours work is needed to complete construction on ISS by the 2005 deadline.

The two astronauts had a lengthy to-do list in the latest mission, including completing the assembly of a Russian-made mechanical arm and testing the integrity of a US-made one.

They also installed a camera cable and security handrails to the exterior of the ISS, and replaced a faulty communications antenna.

The second part of the maintenance mission begins late Monday as the astronauts board the two modules.

Their most important task is to replace a charger and four of the six batteries needed to generate electricity for the ISS that no longer work.

Atlantis was launched Friday from the Kennedy Space Center on a delayed 10-day mission to repair the ISS and load equipment onto the station for use by crews arriving later this year.

The shuttle team is made up of six astronauts and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev.

The space station, assembled in December 1998, currently comprises two modules: the US-built Unity and the Russian module Zarya, with maintenance to the latter module the most pressing.

Ten smoke detectors will be changed aboard Zarya, and fans installed to improve air flow aboard the module to remove the risk of exposure to toxic fumes experienced by previous crews.

Sound-proofing work will also be carried out on Zarya.

If another module, Zvezda is launched in July as planned, there will be at least four more space flights to the station by the end of the year -- three by US shuttles and one by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Work to finish the giant laboratory will require some 40 space missions between now and 2005.

The ISS will permanently house six and seven-member crews that will rotate after stays of about five months each, with the first crew -- comprising one US astronaut and two Russians -- to arrive in the third quarter 2000.

Three astronauts scheduled to make the second trip to the ISS in 2001 are currently aboard Atlantis.

The 60-billion-dollar (67-billion-euro) project has been plagued by criticism that was boosted by a recent report of the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the US Congress.

The report said the Russian modules Zarya and Zvezda were not up to US safety standards and insufficiently protected from meteorites and space debris. The report underlined noise level problems inside Zarya.

However, in the lead-up to the Atlantis launch, Bob Cabana, deputy ISS manager for international operation, assured critics that the problems would be solved.

While this is Atlantis' 21st mission, the upgraded space shuttle has not flown since 1997. It is scheduled to return to Earth on May 29.

The ISS project is made up of around 100 parts, and on completion will measure 108 meters (354 feet) by 74 meters (243 feet).

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STATION NEWS
Atlantis Crew Begins Station Repairs
Houston (AFP) May 21, 2000 - After docking flawlessly with the International Space Station (ISS), the US space shuttle Atlantis' seven-person crew Sunday got down to the business of repairing two of the station's modules, Unity and Zarya.