Out of this world
These astronauts spent Christmas Eve way above Santa's sleigh
'Twas the night before Christmas, and high above your house, U.S. astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio repaired the International Space Station.
It took nearly seven hours for the two men to successfully remove a degraded pump module and start up a new one. The engineers completed the repairs in two parts; the first on December 22, and the second on December 24. It was just the second time in NASA history a spacewalk occurred on Christmas Eve.
Below, images of the astronauts having themselves a spacey little Christmas:
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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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