Orbiter Now Due To Return To Earth February 20
You're doing so well... you might as
well stay awhile. On Wednesday, NASA extended the space shuttle
Atlantis' stay at the International Space Station by one more day,
giving the seven-member STS-122 crew additional time to make sure
the newly-installed Columbus laboratory is up and running
properly.
The decision came after European Space Agency astronauts Rex
Walheim and Hans Schlegel successfully completed the second of
three scheduled spacewalks outside the orbital laboratory. Their
excursion lasted six hours and 45 minutes, during which time the
spacewalkers completed the removal of an expended Nitrogen Tank
Assembly (NTA) and the installation of a new one on the P1 truss.
The tank is part of the orbital outpost’s cooling system.
With the help of the station’s robotic arm, the
spacewalkers moved the new NTA from its position in space shuttle
Atlantis’ payload bay, according to NASA. They temporarily
stowed it on a Crew and Equipment Translation Aid cart while they
removed the expended tank. With the new NTA installed, the old tank
was transferred to the orbiter’s payload bay for return to
Earth.
Because they finished their primary tasks early, the
spacewalkers were also able to install thermal covers on the
trunnion pins on the European Space Agency’s Columbus
laboratory. They also inspected and adjusted the US Destiny
laboratory's orbital debris shields.
Schlegel -- sidelined from participating in the mission's first
spacewalk due to an unspecified illness -- showed no signs of
discomfort during the extravehicular excursion.
"You guys did great," Mission Control told the spacewalkers,
reports The Houston Chronicle. "You did a great job, Hans. You are
a master at this."
Mission Specialist Stanley Love will join Walheim for
STS-122’s third spacewalk on Friday at 0835 EST. They will
install two payloads on the exterior of the Columbus laboratory:
SOLAR, an observatory to monitor the sun; and the European
Technology Exposure Facility that will carry eight experiments
requiring exposure to the space environment, including lichen and
fungus samples.
The decision to extend Atlantis' stay at the ISS came at the
request of the International Space Station Program, and extends the
STS-122 mission to 13 days -- giving the crew extra time to prepare
Columbus to host a wide range of biological and physics
experiments. As ANN reported, the mission
was extended from 11 days to 12 earlier this week, after Schlegel's
illness postponed the first spacewalk by one day.
Atlantis will now undock from the space station on Monday,
February 18, and land at 0906 EST Wednesday, February 20, at
Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
Meanwhile, crewmembers inside the ISS found their efforts to
activate the new lab hindered somewhat, by a software glitch
between NASA and European computers. The glitch delayed the
transmission of initial commands to the lab from a control center
near Munich.