STS-132's second spacewalk completed

HOUSTON, May 19 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says astronauts Steve Bowen and Michael Good completed the second STS-132 spacewalk Wednesday in 7 hours and 9 minutes.

NASA said the astronauts replaced four of six 375-pound batteries on the International Space Station's port-6 truss, getting a leg up on a major mission priority since plans called for only three of the batteries to be replaced Wednesday. The remaining batteries are to be changed during the third and last planned spacewalk Friday by Good and Garrett Reisman.

The spacewalk began at 6:38 a.m. EDT, more than 25 minutes ahead of a scheduled start that already had been moved up 30 minutes. One reason for the early scheduled start was the addition of a task to remove a cable snag in the orbiter boom sensor system's pan and tilt mechanism. Bowen accomplished that task in less than 30 minutes, while Good began work with the batteries, NASA said.

The astronauts Wednesday also installed a backup Ku band antenna on the space station's Z1 truss, leaving the antenna ready to operate.

NASA said the spacewalk that officially ended at 1:47 p.m. EDT was the 238th conducted by U.S. astronauts, the fifth for Bowen and the third for Good. It was the 145th in support of International Space Station assembly and maintenance, totaling 908 hours and 7 minutes.