The second spacewalk is underway - the astronauts replaced the nitrogen tank

The two installed a new nitrogen tank in the station's cooling system. Inside the station, the astronauts began working inside the European Space Laboratory Columbus

21: 00 Update

Two astronauts operating outside the International Space Station, Rex Wallheim and Hans Schlagel, completed the removal of the external nitrogen tank and the installation of the new tank in its place on the station's P1 component. The tank is part of the station's cooling system. The two went into space at 09:27 EST - 16:27 Israel time.

With the help of the station's robotic arm, the astronauts were able to move the new container from its location in the Atlantis cargo hold to a temporary location on a trailer used to transport equipment on the station's exterior, while they removed the old container. After removing the old tank, the new tank is attached to its place on the side of the station. The old tank by the way was returned to the shuttle's cargo deck and will be returned to Earth.

On Friday, the third spacewalk will take place, in which Wallheim and Stanley Love will install two facilities on the outer side of the European space laboratory Columbus - SOLAR - an observatory for monitoring the sun, and technological experiments will be conducted inside it, from time to time up to eight experiments that require exposure to the conditions of space.

Meanwhile inside the station, members of the STS-122 mission crew and the space station's 16th crew continued operations inside the Columbus Space Laboratory attached to the station on Monday. Yesterday (Tuesday) Leopold Ehrtes and Hans Schlagel, both astronauts on behalf of the European Space Agency, opened the lock that connected the station to the new laboratory. Shortly before the opening, Eiharts commented: "This is a big moment for Hans and for me and I am proud to be here and inaugurate the Columbus component for the first time."