HOUSTON --
The International Space Station (ISS) has a new orbital look after a joint team
of astronauts installed a pair of massive trusses and solar arrays to the
starboard side of the high-flying lab Monday.
Despite a late
start, STS-117 spacewalkers
Jim Reilly II and Danny Olivas installed the 17.5-ton addition to the
station during a six-hour, 15-minute excursion to the starboard-most edge of
the orbital laboratory.
"That was a
full day, and it all went beautifully," said Reilly, who completed his fourth
spacewalk during the activity, after the excursion.
The
extravehicular activity (EVA) began at 4:02 p.m. EDT (2002 GMT), about an hour
later than planned, due to the sheer heft of the 35,678-pound
(16,183-kilogram) Starboard
3/Starboard 4 (S3/S4) trusses and arrays which overwhelmed the station's
U.S.-built attitude control gyroscopes. But the spacewalkers worked swiftly and, ultimately, made up for
lost time.
"It was, in
a word, incredible," Reilly said, adding that Olivas worked like a natural despite
making his first trek as a spacewalker. "It's just something that can't be
matched."
Monday's
extravehicular activity (EVA) marked the first of three planned spacewalks to install and activate the S3/S4 truss segments and arrays hauled
to the ISS aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis. Once deployed, the new solar
wings will help provide the power supply necessary to support new ISS modules
and international laboratories slated to launch over the next eight months.
During
Monday's spacewalk, NASA mission managers added
a fourth spacewalk and two extra days to the STS-117
mission.
Atlantis
shuttle pilot Lee Archambault and mission specialist Sunita
Williams wielded the space station's robotic arm to install the S3/S4 truss to
its berth at the tip of the station's Starboard 1 segment. Fellow STS-117
astronaut Patrick Forrester choreographed the spacewalkers movements from the
Atlantis shuttle's flight deck.
During a week
of joint activities, Atlantis' STS-117 crew and their ISS counterparts will
unfurl the new solar arrays to their 240-foot (73-meter) wingspan and stow
away in older solar array reaching to starboard over the S3/S4 truss from the
station's mast-like Port 6 (P6) power tower. Atlantis docked at the ISS Sunday
afternoon to kick off the first of NASA's four planned construction missions to
the station this year.
Power in
hand
The 45-foot
(16-meter) long S3/S4 truss segment is the latest addition to the space
station's main truss, which serves as the orbital laboratory's metallic
backbone and, when complete, will include 11 sections that together would rival
a U.S. football field in length.
At the
starboard-most tip of the S4 segment are the folded
away solar arrays, which Reilly and Olivas moved into position and primed
for deployment during their spacewalk. The astronauts also freed a radiator to
cool the new power plant, set up struts to reinforce the S3/S4 trusses and
removed some 100 bolts to prepare the outboard S4 element to rotate like a
paddlewheel later so its solar arrays can track the Sun.
But that
didn't mean the spacewalkers didn't take some time out to take in the view.
"I never
really understood how dark it gets," Olivas said. "Every 45 minutes a sunrise
and a sunset, absolutely phenomenal."
Monday's
spacewalk marked the 84th devoted to ISS construction or maintenance
and the 56th to begin from the space station itself. By the
excursion's end, Reilly's career spacewalking tally increased to four EVAs totaling 22 hours, 45 minutes.
Olivas, who
is making his first spaceflight along with first spacewalks during the STS-117
mission, now has six hours and 15 minutes of spacewalking time.
"The smiles
on those guys faces go from one ear all the way around to the same ear," said
Expedition 15 flight engineer Clayton Anderson after the spacewalk.
NASA is
broadcasting the space shuttle Atlantis' STS-117 mission live on NASA TV. Click here for mission updates and
SPACE.com's video feed.
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