Astronauts complete spacewalk to fix space station power unit It was the sixth spacewalk for Williams, a Navy captain who has now logged 44 hours as a spacewalker - the most ever for a woman. The previous record was held by US astronaut Peggy Whitson. On August 20, Russia's Gennady Padalka and Yury Malenchenko carried out a spacewalk of nearly six hours to install a shield to protect one of the ISS modules from micro-meteorites and space debris. They also repositioned a telescopic crane, with a view towards the arrival in late 2013 of a new Russian laboratory module that will be attached to the ISS. In addition to the spacewalks, the current ISS team is preparing for the arrival of four cargo vessels - two from Russia, one from Europe and one from Japan.