Anchored to the end of a boom on the space station's robot arm, astronaut Scott Parazynski gave flight controllers their first detailed description of damage to a ripped solar array, reporting a complex tangle of guide wires, hinge pins and grommets around an area that was mangled during deployment Tuesday.

"The damage is as anticipated," he reported, examining the damage from a few feet away. "There is a hairball (tangle) with the guidewire, the hinge between (blanket slats) 35 and 36 and a grommet, not sure of the origin of it, but probably at the 35-36 location. That's almost certainly where it came from. There is separation of the doubler, the physical hinge off of the inboard, lower side of panel, let me get this right here, 36. Looks to be about 8 to 10 inches in length, it's ripped clean from the edge of the panel. You can see that the cells are still intact on the back side, it just came off from the edge.

"The hinge wire itself still courses through the doubler and goes out to the edge of the winge. You can see it touching almost the FCC (flat cable connector) at the level of the small damage there. There appear to be numerous sharp edges, I don't see any sparking or anything of that nature at this point. It doesn't look like the damage itself pulled the hinge wire inboard, which is, I think, good news. I reported earlier, I'm not sure if you copied me, but I reported that it looked like the outboard side of the 35-36 hinge line there was intact, there was no separation. And that's consistent with my observation here, that the damage did not pull the whole hinge wire inboard."

"Houston copies all and concurs. Thanks a bunch for that description," replied astronaut Steve Swanson in mission control.

"You're very welcome. Looking at the FCC, it looks like it has held structural integrity the full length. I am looking at a couple of areas on the inboard side of panel 35, it looksž like some of the Kapton has separated from the wire bundle coming from the panel. But I don't see any separation of wiring, it looks like the wire from that panel has held going into the FCC.

"The most badly damaged panel, which is 36, the wire bundle coming from the panel going to the FCC does appear to be bent, but I don't see it severed. It probably still is generating power, is my guess. Those are the only two areas of real concern that I see FCC wise."

Looking closely, he several hinges between adjacent slats near the main damage area appeared to have pulled apart slightly.

"So there's been a zippering effect at one, two, three, four levels," he said. "Between 36 and 37, though, it appears intact."

Shuttle commander Pam Melroy then summed it up, "So both hinge wires from the large and the small damage sites, the guidewire and one or more grommets are all knotted together?"

"That appears to be what happened, yes," Parazynski replied.

He also reported seeing a few cracked solar cells before beginning work to install a so-called cufflink-like strap between blanket slats well above and below the damage site to prevent any additional separation and keep the two rips from getting worse before addressing the guide wire tangle. Five cufflink straps will be installed in all to carry the tension needed for the array's final extension.

Video from Parazynski's helmet cam showed him threading the homemade 66-inch-long cufflink strap through a reinforced hole in a slat above the damage. Threading the other end into a hole well below the damage, the strap should provide the support needed during the rest of the repair.

"That was a beautiful thing, to see that cufflink go into the hole," Melroy radioed.

"Yes, it was. I just want to apply a little force to get it fully engaged there," Parazynski said, giving the strap a light pull. "That's how you do it."

"Yeah, that tug test looks good," Melroy said.

"Peggy and Zambo, nice handiwork," Parazynski said, complimenting station commander Peggy Whitson and shuttle pilot George Zamka.

"Yeah, that was a really nice job," Melroy said. "It ook them all day and now they'll be out there forever, which is kind of fun."

"Yes it is."

"Got big smiles in here," mission control said.

Additional coverage for subscribers:
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