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Loop B ammonia pump operating normally BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: December 14, 2006 After spacewalkers re-wired two of the space station's four main electrical circuits, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston successfully activated a critical cooling system in a major milestone for station assembly. "Discovery, Hosuton, for EVA. More good news," astronaut Stephen Robinson radioed from Houston. "Go ahead," replied Discovery pilot William "Billy O" Oefelein. "Billy O and crew and everybody on board, would like to let you know the pump module powerup has gone just great," Robinson reported. "You will not be doing an R-and-R of a pump module today. We've got good rpm, temperatures and pressures." "Excellent," spacewalker Robert Curbeam drawled. "That is great news, great work by Houston all around," Oefelein said. "I know (lead flight director John Curry) has worked on this for a long time. Congratulations to him and his great team there. Well done." "Ditto," Curbeam drawled. The station's main power system is equipped with two independent cooling loops, designed to pump ammonia through cold plates to carry heat away from big switching units, transformers and other components. One cooling loop is devoted to equipment on the 2/3 circuits activated today while the other is associated with circuits 1 and 4, scheduled for re-wiring Saturday. Had the loop B pump module failed to run properly today, Curbeam and Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang would have had to reverse their electrical work, switching back to an interim power system, to prevent the main bus switching units from overheating. A spare pump module is available on the station, but with today's successful activation of the loop B pump, no such repair work will be needed.
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