CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A historic handoff between robot arms on shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station was postponed Wednesday after outpost command computers crashed, triggering a communications outage at the frontier facility.
Ground controllers were able to maintain contact with the 10 people aboard the linked shuttle-station complex through Endeavour's satellite communications system, but the glitch forced NASA to delay the first major test of the outpost's newly installed robot arm.
Station flight engineer Susan Helms had been scheduled to limber up the Canadian construction crane and hand off its pallet-like launch mount to shuttle robot arm operator Chris Hadfield for stowage in Endeavour's cargo bay.
The passing of the pallet would have marked the first time two robot arms -- and two robot arm operators -- have worked in concert in space.
NASA, however, put off the job until Thursday after the station crew and ground controllers were unable to resolve the computer problem during several hours of troubleshooting.
"We are not going to have any trouble with [the delay]," Helms told flight engineers at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas. "We could see that was coming."
In fact, the bulk of the day Thursday already had been set aside for a third spacewalk in case robot arm assembly work fell behind schedule during two sorties that were carried out on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively.The delay prompted the visiting shuttle crew to turn its attention to unloading an Italian moving van while Helms and her two station colleagues worked to fix the computer problem.
The shuttle-borne cargo carrier is filled with several tons of supplies and equipment ferried to the station for its crew, which includes Russian commander Yuri Usachev and American flight engineer Jim Voss.
Among the gear and goods: Food, water and clean clothes as well as two research racks that were carried into the station's $1.4 billion U.S. Destiny laboratory.
The astronauts also hauled several science experiment packages into the station from the shuttle's crew cabin as well as two spacesuits and a pair of jet backpacks that would be used in the event of a spacewalking emergency.
"We're just trying to get ahead of the game," shuttle skipper Kent Rominger told ground controllers.
In what amounted to a problem-plagued day on the station, its resident crew also battled with a balky Russian carbon dioxide removal machine. The air scrubber had been working sporadically during the past several days but shut down completely.
A clogged filter was the leading suspect, and Russian flight controllers were working on a plan to re-route air through the system in a bid to get it operational again.
The Russian system provides station crews with just one of several ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere aboard the outpost. A similar U.S. machine in the Destiny lab has remained out of commission since its delivery to the station in February.
The station crew, consequently, is relying on a third system that pumps outpost air through lithium hydroxide canisters, which are designed to remove carbon dioxide as well as odors and trace contaminants.
An identical system aboard Endeavour, meanwhile, was augmenting the station scrubber.
Flight controllers hope to fix the Russian system before the arrival at the station next week of a three-man Soyuz taxi crew that will include Dennis Tito, the American millionaire who is paying the Russians an estimated $18 million for a 10-day round trip to the outpost.
In any case, flight controllers say the onboard supply of lithium hydroxide canisters will be sufficient despite the presence of six people and the absence of the auxiliary capability now being provided by Endeavour.
Launched last Thursday, Endeavour and its multinational crew still plan to depart the station on Saturday -- the same day that Tito and his cosmonaut colleagues are scheduled to take off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Made up of astronauts from the United States, Russia, Canada and Italy, the shuttle crew is due back here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 10 a.m. EDT (14:00 GMT) next Monday.
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