A doomed spacesuit is alone and tumbling
through space after a Friday spacewalk by two astronauts
outside the International Space Station (ISS).
ISS Expedition
12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery
Tokarev launched the ham radio-equipped spacesuit -
an expired
Orlan dubbed "SuitSat" that researchers had hoped would broadcast for
days - at the start of their spacewalk
220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth.
"Goodbye, Mr. Smith," said
Tokarev, a cosmonaut with Russia's Federal Space
Agency, as he shoved
the spacesuit away from the ISS.
Video cameras mounted to the
exterior of the ISS watched as the tumbling SuitSat
drifted away.
Less than one hour later, flight
controllers reported that SuitSat was performing as
expected - though admittedly with a weaker than expected signal - transmitting
greetings to the Earth in five different languages and other data down to
Earth. [Click here for
more information on the SuitSat experiment.]
"Japan has been listening," veteran
NASA astronaut Michael Foale, serving as spacecraft commander, told the
Expedition 12 crew. Coincidentally, Foale was the
last astronaut to wear the Orlan spacesuit - during a spacewalk
in February 2004 - now orbiting the Earth, NASA officials said.
"Really, that's outstanding," said
McArthur, who is serving as NASA's science officer during Expedition 12.
But after only two orbits, or about
three hours, SuitSat went silent. [Note: Later updates found that the spacesuit
was indeed still broadcasting a signal, albeit very weak.]
"Apparently, the batteries on the
spacesuit have either frozen or died," NASA commentator Rob Navias
said. "SuitSat is no longer being heard by ham radio
operators around the world."
SuitSat will eventually burn up in the
Earth's atmosphere in a few weeks' time, NASA officials said.
The Expedition 12 crew tossed SuitSat behind the ISS, in the opposite direction of the
station's relative motion, about 18 minutes after exiting the Pirs docking compartment clad in their own, red-striped
Russian-built Orlan spacesuits at 5:44 p.m. EST (2244
GMT). McArthur and Tokarev spent a total of five
hours and 43 minutes walking in space, NASA officials said.
Cable woes
Amid other ISS science and
maintenance tasks, McArthur and Tokarev were also
tapped to safeguard a vital cable against an automated guillotine-like system
attached to the station's Mobile Transporter.
The Mobile Transporter moves much
like a railcar to transport the outpost's robotic arm, astronauts or massive
ISS components - such as solar arrays - across the space station. Two cables,
one primary and a backup, transfer power, data and video between the
transporter and the ISS.
But in December, a spring-loaded
cutter system designed to fire in the event of a snag inexplicably cut a trailing
umbilical cable, leaving the Mobile Transporter with only one working
cable.
McArthur and Tokarev
attempted to drive a safing bolt, which would block
the cutter system from firing into the operable cable system, but were unable
to install the bolt completely using power screwdriver-like pistol grip tool.
Instead, the astronauts removed the
cable from the cutter system entirely. But while that guarantees the vital
cable will not be accidentally cut, the solution also rendered the Mobile
Transporter immobile until the cutter system can be replaced or fixed, NASA
officials said, adding that it could a problem for astronauts set to repair the
severed cable during NASA's next shuttle flight - STS-121
aboard the Discovery orbiter - to launch later this year.
"It's disappointing that it didn't
go exactly like we wanted, but that's life in the big city," McArthur said
after the activity.
Grapplers, biology and photography
in space
SuitSat and the bolt safing
work aside, the rest of the Expedition 12 crew's spacewalk went swimmingly.
McArthur and Tokarev
moved a grapple
fixture used to attach Russian-built Strela cargo
booms to the ISS from its perch along the station's Zarya
control module to a new berth at alongside the Pressurized
Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3), where NASA space shuttles dock during
station-bound flights. STS-121 spacewalkers plan to use the Strela
crane during their upcoming mission.
The Expedition 12 crew also
retrieved a canister full of microorganisms, part of the Russian experiment Biorisk, and will return it to Earth for researchers
studying the space environment's effect on living creatures.
For their final task, McArthur and Tokarev hauled
themselves hand-over-hand to the aft end of the station's Zvezda service module, where they took detailed
photographs of peeling paint and soot-covered areas discolored by residue from
the module's thruster firings over the years. Engineers on the ground will go
over the images to study the state of the module.
"Thank you Bill, good job," said Tokarev, who served as lead spacewalker during the
extravehicular activity, after the astronauts had climbed back inside the Pirs docking compartment.
Friday's spacewalk marked the second
career spacewalk for Tokarev and the fourth for
McArthur following a Nov. 7, 2005
excursion. Together, the two astronauts have spent 11 hours and five
minutes walking space during their mission. While that's a total for Tokarev, it brings McArthur up to 24 hours and 21 minutes
of orbital work sans spacecraft.
To date, astronauts have performed 64
spacewalks to assemble and maintain the ISS, 36 of which were launched from the
station itself with14 of those beginning at the Pirs
hatch. Humans have spent 384 hours and 23 minutes putting together and
repairing each piece of the ISS since its first component launch in 1998, NASA
officials said.
McArthur and Tokarev
have lived aboard the ISS since October
2005, and are slated to return to Earth in early April.
"What a beautiful spacecraft this
is," McArthur said of the station during Friday's spacewalk. "It was an
adventure."
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