Spaceflight Now




Spaceflight Now +



Subscribe to Spaceflight Now Plus for access to our extensive video collections!
How do I sign up?
Video archive

Atlantis date set

NASA leaders hold this news briefing to announce shuttle Atlantis' launch date and recap the Flight Readiness Review.

 Play

Phoenix: At the Cape

NASA's Mars lander named Phoenix has arrive at Kennedy Space Center to begin preparations for launch in August.

 Full coverage

STS-63: A rendezvous with space station Mir

As a prelude to future dockings between American space shuttles and the Russian space station Mir, the two countries had a test rendezvous in Feb. 1995.

 Play

"Apollo 17: On The Shoulders of Giants"

Apollo's final lunar voyage is relived in this movie. The film depicts the highlights of Apollo 17's journey to Taurus-Littrow and looks to the future Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and shuttle programs.

 Play

Atlantis returns to pad

Two months after rolling off the launch pad to seek repairs to the hail-damaged external fuel tank, space shuttle Atlantis returns to pad 39A for mission STS-117.

 Part 1 | Part 2

Become a subscriber
More video



Wrapping up retraction
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: June 6, 2007

Flight controllers do not know what to expect from the P6-2B SAW. While they hope to get it retracted without any intervention by the spacewalkers, they have blocked out time throughout the mission to continue troubleshooting, if necessary.

On flight day seven, while Reilly and Olivas prepare their suits and tools for a third spacewalk on flight day eight, ground controllers have set aside three hours for additional P6-2B retraction work, depending on the SAW's condition after the second spacewalk.

If additional retraction is needed, the plan is to command the mast to pull in one bay and then to use the SAWs beta gimbal joints to rotate the mast about the vertical axis to set up additional motion in the blankets that might work a stuck grommet free from a guide-wire hang up.


DATE/EDT.......DD...HH...MM...EVENT

Thu 08:38 AM...05...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup
Thu 11:38 AM...05...16...00...SSRMS maneuvers to P6-2B retraction viewing
Thu 11:38 AM...05...16...00...P6-2B retraction window opens
Thu 03:03 PM...05...19...25...P6-2B retraction window closes
Thu 03:03 PM...05...19...25...Post-EVA tool reconfig
Thu 03:03 PM...05...19...25...Crew meals begin
Thu 04:03 PM...05...20...25...Spacesuit swap
Thu 04:53 PM...05...21...15...Equipment lock preps
Thu 05:43 PM...05...22...05...EVA-3: Tools configured
Thu 07:18 PM...05...23...40...O2 system reconfig
Thu 08:23 PM...06...00...45...EVA-3: Procedures review
Thu 09:23 PM...06...01...45...PAO event
Thu 10:53 PM...06...03...15...EVA-3: Mask pre-breathe and tool config
Thu 11:48 PM...06...04...10...EVA-3: 10.2 depress

06/15/07
Fri 12:08 AM...06...04...30...ISS crew sleep begins
Fri 12:38 AM...06...05...00...STS crew sleep begins
"We'll have a maximum of three-and-a-half hours to continue that retraction and this is the part where we'll retract one bay, do that beta gimbal motion, to do the back and forth sinusoidal motion, see what we get and we'll continue that until the point where if we have snags in these guidewires, we don't want to get them bunched up near the bottom of the blanket box," Beck said. "So if at any point we get a snag down close to the blanket box, that's when we'll stop and we'll finish it up the following day during the (third) spacewalk.

"Depending on how successful we are on flight day seven, it's really hard for me to tell you how long we might be spending during that third spacewalk. But during the third spacewalk, the objective will be to retract it the rest of the way if we weren't able to get it all the way retracted. They'll also take a very good, close look, make sure everything is in the right configuration before we latch up the blanket boxes."

If additional retraction work is needed, Reilly and Olivas will do whatever they can during the third spacewalk the next day. NASA is reserving the option of extending Atlantis' mission by two days to permit a fourth spacewalk to finish up any work that might be delayed by the P6-2B retraction work.

If P6-2B remains partially or fully extended on flight day eight, Reilly will anchor himself to the station's robot arm while Olivas moves up to the array mast canister.

"We'll retract as far as we can on flight day seven and then stop, and then our objective will be to go out and do pretty much what Bob Curbeam was doing (during the P6-4B retraction work last December), and that is just smoothing out any of the hang-ups that we get on the guide wires, look for any frays like they saw on the opposite solar array panel, work those out so that they can run smoothly and then slowly retract the entire array until we get it completely retracted."

Reilly said based on lessons learned, he's optimistic about getting P6-2B folded back into its canister.

"It's like anything, after you do it a second time you can do it better and faster," he said. "So we've taken everything that they've learned and distilled it down with our team and the engineering team here at JSC and at Boeing, to look very closely at what the problems were, what they could be, and what's the best way to solve it. So we think we've got a pretty good plan about how we're going to approach at least the problems that they saw.

"We can always be surprised and we're setting ourselves up so that we can adapt and respond to something else happening up there. We're spending, as you might expect, a lot of training time on the ground looking at the hardware to try to really, truly understand how this system works."


DATE/EDT.......DD...HH...MM...EVENT

Fri 08:38 AM...06...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup
Fri 09:18 AM...06...13...40...EVA-3: Hygiene break
Fri 09:48 AM...06...14...10...EVA-3: Airlock repress
Fri 10:28 AM...06...14...50...EVA-3: Camp out EVA prep
Fri 10:38 AM...06...15...00...EVA-3; Airlock depress to 10.2 psi
Fri 11:58 AM...06...16...20...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge
Fri 12:13 PM...06...16...35...EVA-3: Spacesuit pre-breathe
Fri 01:03 PM...06...17...25...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization
Fri 01:08 PM...06...17...30...SSRMS EVA-3 maneuver
Fri 01:38 PM...06...18...00...EVA-3: Airlock egress
Fri 01:48 PM...06...18...10...EVA-3: Containment inspection
Fri 02:48 PM...06...19...10...EVA-3: EV1: H2O/H2 vent valve R&R
Fri 02:48 PM...06...19...10...EVA-3: EV2: EWIS antenna installation
Fri 04:18 PM...06...20...40...EVA-3: Stow S3 drag link
Fri 05:18 PM...06...21...40...EVA-3: EV1: MMOD shield bolt release
Fri 05:18 PM...06...21...40...EVA-3: EV2: APFR relocation
Fri 05:48 PM...06...22...10...EVA-3: Node/Service Module LAN cable routing
Fri 06:33 PM...06...22...55...EVA-3: 13A.1 get aheads
Fri 07:23 PM...06...23...45...EVA-3: Cleanup and airlock ingress
Fri 07:53 PM...07...00...15...Work site three configuration
Fri 08:03 PM...07...00...25...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization
Fri 08:18 PM...07...00...40...Spacesuit servicing
Fri 08:48 PM...07...01...10...SRMS powerdown
Fri 11:38 PM...07...04...00...ISS crew sleep begins

06/16/07
Sat 12:03 AM...07...04...25...MT moves from WS-3 to WS-5
Sat 12:08 AM...07...04...30...STS crew sleep begins
Assuming P6-2B is fully retracted before the third spacewalk begins, "we have a list of what are essentially get-ahead tasks," Reilly said. "The primary one on our list is the, the hydrogen vent valve replacement in the end cone of the U.S. lab, which will allow the oxygen generating system that has gone up on a recent flight to be used by the crew to regenerate station atmosphere with oxygen generation on board.

"So our plan will be to go out and replace that valve. That'll take us approximately an hour, hour-and-a-half, and then we have a series of other tasks behind it. There's a wireless instrumentation system which is being used to monitor the motions within the station itself, how do these mechanical structures flex and bend under all the stresses and loads that they see? That helps the engineers here on the ground model how this structure's going to react, how long it's going to live, what kind of stresses it's going to take, what's the ultimate life of the station.

"We're going to put some of those antennas on the end of the lab as well, so Danny's going to be doing that task while I'm doing the Oxygen Generation System valve replacement, and then we'll work from there down through a whole series of essentially smaller tasks until we can get them all done if we can. We hope to. If we have everything work well on the solar array, we should be able to accomplish just about everything they have for us. "

Continue to Part 10 -->



MISSION INDEX