A spacewalk is timed from the moment the airlock is depressurised to the moment it is repressurised: everything spent outside counts, including the wait at the hatch. Most last five to seven hours, planned down to the minute. The five below are the exceptions, and the record changed hands for the first time in 23 years in December 2024.
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9 h 06 min — Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong, Shenzhou 19, 17 December 2024. The first spacewalk longer than nine hours, and the first time the record had moved since 2001. The pair worked outside Tiangong on debris shielding and external equipment; the Chinese agency credited the duration to the station's large robotic arm, which carried them between work sites instead of forcing them to climb.
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8 h 56 min — James Voss and Susan Helms, STS-102, 11 March 2001. The longest NASA spacewalk, and the overall record for 23 years. Helms operated the station's robotic arm while Voss rode it, making this the first spacewalk to use the arm as a work platform rather than a crane. The extra time went on preparing the young station's exterior hardware during the shuttle visit that delivered the Expedition 2 crew.
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8 h 29 min — Pierre Thuot, Richard Hieb and Thomas Akers, STS-49, 13 May 1992. The only three-person spacewalk in history. The crew had to capture the Intelsat VI communications satellite by hand after its booster left it in the wrong orbit; two earlier attempts failed, and the third — with three astronauts outside at once, one holding each side of the satellite while the third attached the capture bar — worked.
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8 h 23 min — Ye Guangfu and Li Guangsu, Shenzhou 18, 28 May 2024. Six months before the record fell, this was already one of the longest spacewalks ever made. The pair fitted external hardware and tested the station's robotic arm over roughly eight and a half hours outside Tiangong.
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8 h 17 min — Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide, Expedition 32, 30 August 2012. A stuck bolt on a power unit turned a routine replacement into an eight-hour job; the pair had to improvise a tool from a wire tie and a toothbrush-like scrubber to clean the connector. Williams, who now holds the record for total time spent spacewalking, tied here with two Shenzhou crews who reached the same duration in 2025.
Durations are planned in advance, but the record list is really a list of improvisations: stuck bolts, failed capture attempts and last-minute additions are what turn a six-hour job into a nine-hour one. The body pays for it afterwards — crews routinely lose several kilograms of water and report sore hands for days.