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Station crew goes outside to free stuck antenna BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: February 22, 2007 Space station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin depressurized the Pirs airlock module, opened a hatch and kicked off a planned six-hour spacewalk today at 5:27 a.m. The primary goal of the excursion is to free up or cut away a navigation antenna on a Progress supply ship that failed to fully retract before the craft docked at the outpost in October. The antenna currently is jammed against the Zvezda command module and Russian engineers want to make sure it doesn't cause any problems when the Progress undocks in April. This is the 81st spacewalk devoted to station construction and maintenance since assembly began in 1998 and the Expedition 14 crew's fourth in less than a month. Wearing a Russian Orlan suit, Tyurin's call sign is EV-1. He is a veteran of four previous spacewalks with 19 hours and 14 minutes of EVA time. Lopez-Alegria, No. 2 on the list of most experienced spacewalkers with nine previous EVAs and more than 61 hours of spacewalk time, is EV-2. Flight engineer Sunita Williams, who joined Lopez-Alegria for three spacewalks earlier this year, will monitor today's work from inside the station. After photographing a station antenna, Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria will make their way to the back end of the Zvezda command module, temporarily mount a tool kit and wrap wire ties around the antenna mechanism. They first will attempt to simply pull the antenna mechanism back, away from command module. If that doesn't work, they will use a set of NASA cutters similar to garden shears to cut through one of the four struts holding the antenna in place. If they still can't retract the antenna, they will cut through the rest of the struts, remove the antenna and carry it back inside the station. The antenna is not needed after docking. Once the Progress antenna is out of the way, Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria plan to:
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A Russian-based spacewalk outside the International Space Station scheduled for February 22 is previewed in this news briefing held at the Johnson Space Center. The EVA's primary task is retracting a stuck antenna on a Russian resupply ship to ensure the craft can undock safely in April.
The United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket roared away from Cape Canaveral Saturday carrying a quintet of NASA probes that seek to understand the physics behind auroral displays.
The STS-117 astronauts meet the press during the traditional pre-flight news conference held at the Johnson Space Center a month prior to launch. The six-person crew will deliver and activate a solar-power module for the International Space Station.
After a six-hour trip along the three-and-a-half-mile crawlerway from the Vehicle Assembly Building, space shuttle Atlantis arrives at launch pad 39A for the STS-117 mission.
Space shuttle Atlantis emerges from its processing hangar at dawn February 7 for the short trip to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center's Complex 39.