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Smooth spacewalk tackles planned work and more BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: May 19, 2010 
Astronauts Stephen Bowen and Michael Good, working at the far left end of the International Space Station's main power truss, successfully replaced four massive solar array batteries today, leaving just two powerpacks to be installed during a third spacewalk Friday.
"I'm doing a wiggle test and I'm not getting any motion," Good reported, pulling on the boom and looking for any signs of play in the antenna-mast interface. "I'm seeing absolutely nothing," Bowen agreed. "Nothing like we had the other day, that's for sure. ... And I don't see any gaps." "Great job, that does it," astronaut Steve Swanson called from mission control a few moments later. "SGANT (space-to-ground antenna) is on firmly." The spacewalkers then worked to remove gimbal locks from the antenna's steering system that were left in place Monday. The additional work pushed the spacewalk beyond the planned six-hour 30-minute mark, but both astronauts said they were in good shape as they worked to complete their final task. Earlier in the spacewalk, Bowen freed a snagged cable that was preventing a pan-and-tilt unit on the end of the shuttle's heat shield inspection boom from moving through its full range of motion. He had no problems securing the offending cable. "You are 'go' to unsnag the LDRI cable," astronaut Steve Swanson radioed from mission control after Bowen was in place. "OK, I have it unsnagged," Bowen replied a moment later. "Well done, superhero," called shuttle pilot Dominic Antonelli. "Now let's see if you can handle the tie wraps." Bowen then tied off the offending cable. A quick test showed the mechanism was still experiencing interference from a different cable tie that was sliding along a group of cables as the pan-and-tile unit moved, preventing a full range of motion. Mission managers are still considering whether to order any additional inspections while Atlantis is docked to the station or whether to wait until an already planned post-undocking inspection. With Bowen's successful repair work, the sensor package should be available for normal operation whenever it is needed. The astronauts had no major problems removing the 375-pound batteries from a cargo pallet held in place by the station's fully extended robot arm and installing them in the P6 solar array's integrated electronics assembly. Each of the station's four main solar array segments includes 12 batteries that are charged during orbital daylight and supply the station's electrical power during orbital darkness. The batteries have a design life of 6.5 years. Launched in November 2000, the P6 arrays are the oldest on the space station. Six of its batteries were replaced in 2009 and the rest are being swapped out during the current flight. Going into today's spacewalk, the objective was to change out just three batteries. Based on past experience, flight controllers were concerned about possible alignment problems. But after wrestling the first new battery into place, Bowen and Good said they had a good feel for how the hardware behaved. "What I saw, Steve, I think the H1 side, my side in your left hand, was too far in, so I think we had a little bit of yaw and I think once we brought it back out ... then it seemed to go in," Good observed. "So I think we had a little yaw in it." "I agree with that," Bowen said. "And I will tell you, I did feel more of a ka-thunk, like it went over a bit of a soft dock that last time when, you know, we kind of rocked it gently. I think that may be the key, get the alignment, get the yaw (corrected), just kind of rock it gently and it should fall into place." "OK, great," Antonelli, the spacewalk coordinator, called from Atlantis. "I was thinking when you were getting ready to drive it the successful time that H1 was a lot farther out than it had been before and my first thought was oh, you don't have it pushed in far enough. But with the yaw error, it was the exact opposite. So great job." "So don't push each one in all the way, let it stay level," Good said. "It'll be a lot easier now," Bowen agreed. The spacewalk began at 6:38 a.m. and ended at 1:47 p.m. EDT. This was the 145th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the ninth so far this year and the second of three planned by the Atlantis astronauts. Total space station EVA time now stands at 908 hours and seven minutes, or 37.8 days. Good, a veteran of two Hubble Space Telescope repair spacewalks, has now logged 23 hours and seven minutes of EVA time through three excursions while Bowen's total through five spacewalks moves him up to 28th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers, with 34 hours and 30 minutes.
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