Spacewalk Number Three

At 9:09 p.m. EST on February 16, two of the astronauts from STS-130 will leave the International Space Station to go for a spacewalk. This is the third and final spacewalk of the mission. They will spend six and a half hours floating around to finish getting the Tranquility node ready. Though, before the astronauts can venture into space, they must spend the night in the Quest airlock. This is called the "camp out" procedure and ensures that the astronauts will not experience decompression sickness, or the bends, because it reduces the amount of nitrogen present in their blood. Before the airlock was installed on the space station in 2001, astronauts had to breath pure oxygen for several hours before they were able to go on a spacewalk.