Sharjah24 – AFP: A French and an American astronaut completed a six-hour spacewalk Sunday as they installed new solar panels to boost power supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said.

"It is a huge team effort each time and couldn't be happier to return with @astro_kimbrough," tweeted Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, referring to his American colleague Shane Kimbrough.

Pesquet is with the European Space Agency, Kimbrough with NASA.

The two men, who arrived on the space station in late April, activated the internal batteries in their space suits at 11H42 GMT, then opened the hatch to the ISS airlock.

They then continued the work of positioning, attaching and deploying six new-generation solar panels, referred to as iROSA, for Roll-Out Solar Array.