BEIJING -- The Shenzhou XVIII taikonauts on board China's orbiting space station completed their second spacewalk at 10:51 pm (Beijing Time) on Wednesday, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

Ye Guangfu, Li Cong and Li Guangsu worked for about 6.5 hours to complete multiple tasks, with Li Guangsu remaining inside the space station.

With the assistance of the space station's robotic arm and researchers on Earth, they installed space debris protection devices for the pipelines, cables and key equipment outside the Tiangong space station, and conducted an extravehicular inspection.

Ye Guangfu and Li Cong, who were assigned the spacewalk duty, have since returned safely to the Wentian lab module.

The trio have completed one third of their space journey and are scheduled to carry out a large amount of in-orbit scientific experiments and technological tests, the agency said.