Moscow ? Two Russian cosmonauts spent more than five hours outside the international space station Wednesday, laying cable and installing protective panels to guard against space debris.

The walk lasted five hours and 37 minutes, about 15 minutes faster than planned.

Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov strung Ethernet cable along the space station’s Russian Zarya module, part of a project to establish a local-area network that would allow the American section of the orbiting lab to exert command over the Russian section in case of systems failure in the latter.

They also placed containers on the outside of the station for a Russian “biorisk” experiment aimed at studying the effect of space orbit on various organisms.

As the two Russians worked outside in their second space walk in eight days, American astronaut Sunita Williams remained inside. Video from the station showed her working on other tasks.