This
story was updated at 2:30 p.m. EST.
Spacewalking
astronauts primed the International Space Station's (ISS) newest room for
orbital flight Tuesday as they prepare to host a visiting NASA shuttle next
month.
Expedition
16 commander
Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani spent more than seven hours
wiring up about half of the power, heater and cooling lines needed to prepare
the station's new Harmony connecting node for the planned Dec. 6 launch of a
European-built lab. They will connect the other half during another spacewalk
on Saturday.
"Another
nice day at the office, here," said Tani as the spacewalk began at 5:10 a.m.
EST (1010 GMT).
Clad in
their bulky NASA spacesuits, the spacewalkers spent most of their time
installing a 300-pound (136-kilogram) fluid tray carries vital ammonia coolant
from the space station's main truss to Harmony. Whitson and Tani handed the
18.5-foot (5.6-meter) cable tray off like
an orbital baton, then secured it in place and attached six stubborn
ammonia lines to complete its installation.
"Those were
hard," Whitson said after wrestling with the final coolant line.
Whitson did
spot several crystals of toxic, frozen ammonia that apparently leaked out while
she worked to vent some of the coolant during her work.
"I've got
ammonia coming out of the vent tool," Whitson said. "Two crystals, quite small
ones. I have had some of them bounce off of me."
Mission
Control told Whitson to press ahead with her work, confident in established
decontamination protocols that included brushing her spacesuit clean and baking
it in sunlight before reentering the ISS.
"You're
looking strong there," Tani told Whitson. "She's king of the world!"
"Queen,"
Whitson, the station's first female commander, replied with a laugh.
Tuesday's
seven-hour, 16-minute spacewalk marked the second
of three planned excursions in a three-week period for the Expedition 16
crew to ready their orbital laboratory for the planned Dec. 6 launch of the
shuttle Atlantis and its STS-122
astronaut crew. The shuttle mission will deliver Columbus, a European Space
Agency laboratory designed to dock at one of several available ports on the
hub-like Harmony node.
Busy day
in space, on Earth
While the
Expedition 16 crew worked outside the ISS today, Atlantis's STS-122 crew staged
a launch dress rehearsal inside their shuttle at Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
"Atlantis
is a beautiful ship and the folks here have done a wonderful job preparing it,"
STS-122 pilot Alan Poindexter told reporters Monday.
But
Atlantis, or any other shuttle, won't be able to dock at the ISS until Harmony
is fully equipped and outfitted, work that will continue during Saturday's
planned spacewalk.
"So there's
a bit of pressure there," Tani told reporters Monday. "But we like pressure and
we look forward to getting outside and getting the work done."
Shuttle
astronauts delivered
Harmony to the ISS just last month, leaving the ISS crew with a packed
November of orbital construction to complete the node's installation and
activation. The astronauts moved the nearly 16-ton Harmony node to the front of
the station's U.S. Destiny lab last week.
"We've
still got a lot of challenges up in front of us," said Derek Hassmann, NASA's
lead Expedition 16 flight director, after the spacewalk. "But based on all the
successes we've had up to this point, I expect the rest of the stage to go very
well."
Whitson,
Tani and fellow crewmate Yuri Malenchenko - who watched over today's spacewalk
from inside the ISS - have already pledged to work through their traditional
Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday in order to meet their tight schedule. Hassmann
said if all continues to go well, the crew should have a relatively light work
day on Thursday.
"They are
just a hard-charging, get it done crew," said Kenny Todd, NASA's ISS program
integration and operations manager, of the Expedition 16 astronauts on Nov. 16.
"We'll have to make sure they understand that it's Thanksgiving and that they
take some time and take a breath."
In addition
to their main spacewalking tasks today, Whitson and Tani also managed to
squeeze in extra work to hook up additional power and data lines, as well as
part of a power transfer system that allows the ISS to feed power to visiting
shuttles. Mission managers are now scrambling to choose additional chores to
add to this Saturday's excursion, said NASA's lead Expedition 16 spacewalk
officer Tomas Gonzalez-Torres.
Tuesday's
spacewalk was the 98th excursion dedicated to ISS assembly or maintenance. It
was also Whitson's third spacewalk, giving her a total of 18 hours and 36
minutes of spacewalking time. Tani also raised his tally to three spacewalks,
ending with a total time 18 hours and 1 minute. Both spaceflyers will also
participate in Saturday's spacewalk.
Tani sent
an orbital greeting to his wife Jane, who watched her astronaut husband at work
from inside NASA's Mission Control in Houston.
"I'll put
my A-game on here," said Tani. "Hi Jane! Hi sweetie!"
NASA
will broadcast the Expedition 16 crew's third spacewalk outside the ISS live on
NASA TV on Nov. 24 beginning at 4:30 a.m. EST (0930 GMT). Click here for SPACE.com's ISS mission updates
and NASA TV feed.
advertisement
