Astronauts have completed the final spacewalk of NASA's space shuttle era, retrieving a broken pump from the International Space Station and conducting a fuel filling experiment on a robot.

Astronauts make last spacewalk of NASA's space shuttle era

It was the 160th spacewalk in the 12-year life of the orbiting outpost. Its also the last one planned for Americans for nearly a year. The two astronauts paused to admire the view 394 kilometers below before heading to the storage platform holding the old, broken pump. They completed their tasks within three hours, forty five minutes.

The ammonia coolant pump stopped working last July and, for more than two weeks, left the space station with only half its cooling capability. The 13-day flight of Atlantis is the last of the 30-year shuttle programme. The shuttle is due to return home on July 21st, where it will go on display at a tourist center.