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Third EVA of shuttle Atlantis' mission about to begin BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: June 15, 2007 The Atlantis astronauts were awakened around 8:30 a.m. to begin a busy day in orbit highlighted by an afternoon spacewalk to complete the retraction of the P6-2B solar array and the impromptu repair of a pulled up insulation blanket on the shuttle's left-side maneuvering rocket pod. Russian flight controllers, meanwhile, have told space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin they don't plan any additional attempts today to restart the Russian segment's computer system. After isolating the system from U.S. solar array power, an attempt was made early today to activate the three-channel navigation system and command-and-control computers. But the navigation system did not boot up and while one of the three channels, or "lanes," making up the central computer came to life, communications were not normal and power to all the computers was shut off one orbit later. Some engineers had speculated that some subtle quirk in the electrical system feeding power from newly installed solar arrays to the Russian segment might have led to this week's problems. The German-built computers are known to be susceptible to "noisy" circuits. But their behavior today in the absence of U.S. power was similar to what was observed earlier in the week. Engineers are continuing to assess the situation. Today's spacewalk, the third of four excursions planned by the Atlantis astronauts, is highlighted by work to repair the insulation blanket and finish the retraction of the P6-2B solar array. The P6 array was attached to the station in 2000 to provide power during the early stages of assembly. Now, NASA needs to move it to the left end of the station's main power truss to prepare the complex for the delivery of European and Japanese resarch modules later this year and early next. During retraction of the P6-4B array last December, the astronauts ran into major problems and ultimately had to stage an unplanned spacewalk to fold the blankets back in their storage boxes. This time around, the Atlantis astronauts have taken a more deliberate, step-by-step approach, retracting the array about 28 feet before a spacewalk Wednesday in which Pat Forrester and Steve Swanson manually cleared hangups and ultimately got the 115-foot-long array in about half way. Today, Reilly and Olivas plan to finish the job, although time is available in a fourth spacewalk Sunday if they run into any major problems. As for the pulled-up insulation blanket, Olivas, working on the end of the shuttle's 50-foot-long robot arm, plans to push the bent-up corner down flush and use a surgical stapler to secure its edges to adjacent blankets. He also will use steel thread to anchor the blanket in an adjacent row of heat-shield tiles. The work is fairly straight forward as such things go and mission managers are optimistic the repair will stand up to the rigors of re-entry when temperatures on the upper part of the shuttle can reach 1,000 degrees. Here is a timeline of today's activities (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes rev. I of the NASA TV schedule): DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...EVENT 06/15/07 08:38 AM...06...13...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 09:18 AM...06...13...40...EVA-3: Airlock repress 09:33 AM...06...13...55...EVA-3: Hygiene break 10:00 AM...06...14...22...NASA Video File on NTV 10:08 AM...06...14...30...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 10:28 AM...06...14...50...EVA-3: Campout EVA prep 11:58 AM...06...16...20...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge 12:13 PM...06...16...35...EVA-3: Spacesuit prebreathe 01:03 PM...06...17...25...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization 01:08 PM...06...17...30...Station robot arm EVA-3 maneuver 01:38 PM...06...18...00...EVA-3: Airlock egress 01:58 PM...06...18...20...EVA-3: Reilly: OMS pod setup 01:58 PM...06...18...20...EVA-3: Olivas: OMS pod repair 02:23 PM...06...18...45...EVA-3: Reilly: H2O/H2 vent valve R&R 03:53 PM...06...20...15...EVA-3: Reilly: OMS pod cleanup 04:23 PM...06...20...45...EVA-3: P6-2B retraction 07:23 PM...06...23...45...EVA-3: Cleanup and airlock ingress 07:38 PM...07...00...00...Work site 3 configuration 08:03 PM...07...00...25...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization 08:18 PM...07...00...40...Spacesuit servicing 08:48 PM...07...01...10...Shuttle robot arm powerdown 10:00 PM...07...02...22...Mission status briefing on NTV 11:38 PM...07...04...00...ISS crew sleep begins 06/16/07 12:03 AM...07...04...25...Robot arm transporter moves from work site 3 to WS-5 12:08 AM...07...04...30...STS crew sleep begins
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VIDEO:
SECOND SOLAR WING FULLY DEPLOYED 