The commander of the International Space
Station (ISS) is aiming for the all-time U.S.
spacewalking record as he and a fellow astronaut
prepare to venture outside their orbital laboratory for the third
time in nine days.
ISS Expedition
14 commander Michael
Lopez-Alegria will snag the U.S. spacewalking title about four hours
into today's planned 6.5-hour extravehicular activity (EVA) to discard a series
of protective ISS equipment covers and perform other tasks [video
overview].
Lopez-Alegria is due to exit the ISS the ninth of his
NASA astronaut career - with fellow U.S.
astronaut and Expedition 14 flight engineer Sunita
Williams at 9:00 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), rounding out a U.S. spacewalk triple
play that began with station cooling system upgrades on Sunday
and Jan.
31 [image].
Expedition 14 flight engineer Mikhail
Tyurin will help the spacewalkers don their spacesuits, and monitor the
activity from inside the ISS.
"They've far exceeded my expectations," Derek Hassmann,
NASA's lead Expedition 14 flight director for the spacewalks, said of the
spacewalking crew after the Sunday excursion.
The three U.S. Expedition 14 spacewalks are the most densely-packed
series of ISS EVAs to date without a visiting NASA shuttle mission. A fourth
spacewalk to stow a jammed navigation
antenna on a Russian-built
cargo ship is set for Feb. 22.
Gunning for the record
With eight spacewalks, 54 hours and
42 minutes of EVA work under his belt, Lopez-Alegria has nearly caught up with
NASA's current-all-time spacewalker Jerry Ross, who racked up 58 hours and 32
minutes in nine spacewalks.
The world spacewalking title is
firmly in the grasp of Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev, who staged 16 career spacewalks for a total of
about 82 hours and 22 minutes.
Williams has already set her own spacewalking record. During Sunday's EVA, Williams surpassed NASA astronaut Kathryn Thornton as the most
experienced female spacewalker of all time on Sunday with three EVAs and 22 hours, 37 minutes of work outside a spacecraft
[image].
During today's planned spacewalk,
Lopez-Alegria will wear a spacesuit marked with red stripes while Williams dons
an all-white NASA spacesuit [image].
Busy to-do list
The Expedition 14 spacewalkers'
Thursday tasks include removing protective thermal shrouds from a pair of
Rotary Joint Motor Controllers on the space station's Port 3 (P3) truss.
They'll then haul in a pair of
unneeded, expansive sun shades - each larger than a king-size bed sheet - and
wrap them up into bundles smaller than an outdoor garbage can before tossing
them overboard.
Lopez-Alegria and Williams are also
slated to deploy attachment devices for a future spare parts platform on the P3
truss before heading up to the station's space shuttle docking port on the
Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 at the tip of the U.S.
Destiny laboratory [image].
There, they are to do complete wiring up a power transfer system that will
allow NASA shuttles to make longer trips to the ISS by drawing on the station's
power system rather than their own fuel cells, NASA officials said.
During Sunday's spacewalk,
Lopez-Alegria and Williams completed part of the wiring work but ultimately ran
out of time before they finished.
"I think the bottom line is that we
probably don't have the resources to get the whole task done," Lopez-Alegria
said as spacesuit supplies ran low near the end of Sunday's spacewalk.
Today's spacewalk will mark the 80th
EVA dedicated to the ISS assembly or maintenance, and push total spacewalking
time outside the orbital laboratory past the 490-hour mark at full duration.
The third
of four Expedition 14 spacewalks is scheduled begin at 9:00 am. EST (1400 GMT)
on Thursday, Feb. 8, and will be broadcast live on NASA TV.
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