Scott Kelly embarked on his first spacewalk on Wednesday, just hours before he will break the United States' record for longest amount of time spent in space.
Commander Kelly of Expedition 45 and flight engineer Kjell Lindgren completed the maintenance of the International Space Station at 3:19 p.m. EDT, exactly seven hours and 16 minutes after the spacewalk started, according to CNN.
The two U.S. astronauts, while 250 miles above Earth, installed a thermal cover on a particle physics detector called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. They then greased Canadarm2, the robotic arm used to grab capsules on cargo resupply missions. Last on their to-do list was the routing of several cables to prepare new parking spots for future U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, ABC News reports.
As if this accomplishment was not enough to be worthy of recognition, midnight of Thursday will also mark another achievement for the astronaut. Kelly is set to break the American record for NASA's longest single space flight, clocking 216 days in orbit. The previous record for longest stay in space was set in 2007, which was a 215-day record, or more than seven months, set by Spanish-American astronaut Michael López-Alegría, according to The Guardian.
Kelly, however, has been up in space since March and will be staying there until March 2016, according to NBC News. Once he returns to Earth, his brain and body will be examined and compared to those of his identical twin, Mark Kelly, to determine the effects on the body from time in space.
A second spacewalk will occur on Nov. 6, two days after the 15-year anniversary of continuous human presence on the space station, CNN reported.
