This story was updated at 12:54 p.m. EST.
Astronauts
aboard the International Space Station (ISS) moved their orbital laboratory's latest
addition to a new perch Wednesday as engineers on Earth studied a spacesuit
glitch that may impact the crew's spacewalk plans.
Wielding a
58-foot (18-meter) robotic arm, Expedition 16 commander
Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani relocated the nearly 16-ton
Harmony connecting node - a school bus-sized module that will anchor future
international laboratories to the ISS - to the forward end of the station's U.S.
Destiny lab.
"Harmony has found its Destiny, its new home at the forward
end of the International Space Station," said NASA commentator John Ira
Petty as astronauts attached the hub-like node into place.
The Italian-built Harmony node is equipped with six docking
ports in all, two of which provide connections between the ISS and NASA space
shuttles. Four other berths will be used to connect European and Japanese
laboratories, as well as other modules, to the ISS. The European Space Agency's
Columbus lab, set to launch Dec. 6 aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis, will be
the first to arrive at Harmony next month.
"It adds
primarily the capability to add additional modules," Tani said of Harmony in a
NASA interview. "We talk about the space station sort of like a Tinker toy, and
this is one of those connector modules that has lots of holes in it that you
can add additional modules to."
The module's
successful Wednesday move sets the stage for a pair
of spacewalks next week to route power and cooling lines to Harmony, though
the planned Nov. 20 and Nov. 24 excursions must wait until NASA engineers clear
the space station's U.S. spacesuits for orbital work.
NASA halted
all U.S. spacewalk plans earlier this week after an astronaut
smelled smoke inside a U.S. spacesuit - known as an Extravehicular Mobility
Unit - during a Friday ground test at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Engineers
did not find any evidence of combustion or damage in the test spacesuit, NASA
spokesperson Brandi Dean told SPACE.com late Tuesday. They will present
their findings to a mishap investigation team later today, she added.
NASA could
clear the space station's U.S. spacesuits for use as early as today or
Thursday, well ahead of next week's planned spacewalks, space agency officials
said.
Harmony's
swift move
Harmony's
relocation today began at 4:21 a.m. EST (0921 GMT) as Whitson commanded a
series of bolts to retract, loosening the module's grasp on the port side of
the space station's Unity node. Six minutes later, Tani plucked the massive
node and its 1.5-ton shuttle docking port free from the ISS.
"This, I
think, officially ends all of my planned robotics operations for my mission
here," said Tani, who is set to return to Earth next
month aboard Atlantis. "I have really enjoyed running the arm and hopefully I
didn't scare too many people down there."
"It all looked
beautiful from the ground," NASA astronaut Kevin Ford replied from Mission Control.
Whitson and
Tani completed the move about two hours ahead of schedule as they and Russian
crewmate Yuri Malenchenko continue with a busy month of ISS construction work to
ready the space station for December's planned shuttle mission. They opened the hatches between Harmony and the ISS at about 11:52 a.m. EST (1652 GMT).
Expedition
16 astronauts primed Harmony for its move during a Nov. 9 spacewalk, then
equipped the module with its shuttle docking port early Monday. Harmony,
itself, arrived at the ISS on Oct. 26 during NASA's STS-120
shuttle mission.
As Tani
hoisted Harmony to its U.S. Destiny lab berth, cameras mounted to the space
station's exterior returned stunning views of the connecting module backlit by
a bright blue Earth.
"It is amazing," Whitson said. "I love my job."
NASA
will broadcast the Expedition 16 crew's second spacewalk outside the ISS live
on NASA TV on Nov. 20 beginning at 5:00 a.m. EST (1000 GMT). Click here for SPACE.com's ISS mission
updates and NASA TV feed.
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