Two astronauts have completed a successful space walk and returned to the International Space Station (ISS) after the fulfillment of critical repairs on Thursday, Russian mission control said.

Russian Gennady Padalka and American Michael Fincke walked out of the capsule at 1:19 AM (2119 GMT), and five hours and forty minutes later they returned to the ISS, a spokesman for the mission control said.

Last Friday, the fist attempt of space walk was suspended after an oxygen leakage was found in Fincke's space suit.

The main task of the two astronauts was to repair one of four large gyroscopes that keep the station stable and its solar-power arrays pointed toward the sun as the complex orbits 400 kilometers above the earth.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2004)