Mission Status Center

In the mission status briefing today, lead spacewalk officer Allison Bolinger said during the SARJ cover removals today that four of eight fasteners came free as astronaut Mike Fincke worked to remove the first two panels. He caught three of the escaping bolts and one was lost overboard.

"Our plan was to release six covers, three pairs of covers," Bolinger said. "We've had some history of issues with these bolts in the past but we thought we had worked through it and we'd discussed all the different training options in order to release these bolts successfully.

"But Mike started working on covers 16 and 17 and before we knew it, we started having issues with bolts. So in the end, we ended up with cover 17, three of its four bolts that should be captive to the cover, those bolts came uncaptive and Mike was able to stow those in his trash bag. And then on cover 16, we lost one of those four bolts, and that one we lost overboard."

He and fellow spacewalk Andrew Feustel applied as much Braycote grease as possible to the underlying drive gear bearing race and three of the four thermal cover were reinstalled without incident. Panel No. 17, which lost three bolts, was brought back inside.

"Overall, a very, very successful day," said station Flight Director Derek Hassmann. "I'm very proud of the teams on the ground as well as the crew on orbit."

This was the 157th spacewalk devoted to International Space Station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the sixth so far this year. U.S., Russian, European, Japanese and Canadian astronauts have logged 988 hours and 19 minutes of EVA time at the station.

This was the fifth EVA in the career of Drew Feustel and seventh for Mike Fincke. Drew has accumulated 35 hours and 24 minutes of spacewalking time in his previous excursions on this flight and the Hubble Space Telescope servicing in 2009. Mike's earlier spacewalks came in Russian spacesuits at the International Space Station during Expedition missions, now bringing his total to 34 hours and 19 minutes.

EVA ENDS. Repressurization of the Quest airlock module began at 10:12 a.m. EDT, marking the official end of today's spacewalk by Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke. The EVA lasted 8 hours and 7 minutes.

The mission's third of four spacewalks is planned for Wednesday starting around 1:45 a.m. EDT when Feustel and Fincke head outside to install an operating base for the station's robot arm on the Russian Zarya module. The final spacewalk comes next Friday at 12:45 a.m. EDT for Fincke and Greg Chamitoff to transfer ownership of Endeavour's heat shield inspection boom over to the station.

The airlock hatch has been closed and locked. Standing by for repressurization.

Mike and Drew are about to ingress the airlock module.

Lubing of the SARJ and reinstallation of the covers is complete. They bolted three of the covers back in place and will bring the fourth with them back inside the station, in light of its bolt problems. The spacewalkers now can head back to the airlock to bring this EVA to a successful conclusion.

Now passing the seven-hour mark as the EVA goes into overtime.

During a pre-flight interview, Mike Fincke talked about the need for this lubrication task on the port-side SARJ:

"I get to do a lubrication job, add some grease, some Braycote, to our Solar Alpha Rotary Joint. We found the original design had some extra friction that we weren't expecting and it started to grind our joint, so we've, since then, every couple years, started to add some grease on it and it rotates great."

Both spacewalkers are back at the port SARJ for the second application of grease.

Mike has finished work on the radiator stowage beam installations at the S1 truss.

Now Drew is applying some lubrication around the grappling snares on Dextre's hands as preventative maintenance.

The SARJ has completed its rotation and is ready for the spacewalkers to resume the greasing.

Working on the Canadian Dextre robot, Drew has installed a protective lens cover on one of its cameras.

While waiting for the SARJ to rotate 200 degrees, something that will take about 45 minutes, the spacewalkers are going on to other tasks. Drew will be working on the Dextre robot while Mike goes to the Starboard 1 truss to install some stowage beams to be used if the radiators ever have to be replaced.

All of the work with the ammonia jumpers and plumbing that stretched across two spacewalks has been finished. The astronauts have completed the efforts to top off the ammonia coolant in the space station's Port 6 truss photovoltaic thermal control loop, which has a small leak, and returned all the external umbilicals to the original configuration.

The spacewalkers have gotten as much lubing done as possible with the current access through the remove covers. Now ground controllers will command the SARJ to rotate about 200 degrees and work in the grease while the astronauts move on to other tasks. They will return to SARJ and do more lubing later in this EVA.

And now both spacewalkers are working together to stow that 16-foot-long jumper line they had installed to temporarily bridge the SARJ between the Port 3 and Port 4 trusses for the ammonia flow. The line is being disconnected and stowed away so that the SARJ will be free to rotate again.

Mike is using one of the grease guns to apply the coating onto the top surface of the SARJ race ring. A J-shaped gun nozzle is available for greasing the lower side.

After lending Mike a hand for a little bit, Drew has returned to the venting operations to finish breaking down the jumper lines and getting things back into a normal configuration.

Bolt problem prompts change in plans for SARJ lubrication. Read our full story.

A total of four covers have been detached from the SARJ structure to access the ring for lubing versus the original plan to remove six covers.

While waiting for the final venting to naturally finish, Drew has joined Mike to help with the SARJ lubing.

Drew is working on venting the final segment of the ammonia plumbing following today's recharging of the Port 6 cooling loop.

After assessing this situation with the bolts getting free from the SARJ covers, Mission Control has decided that Mike will remove only two more panels and then perform the lubing as best as possible with this partial access.

Now passing the two-and-a-half hours into the EVA. Mike has experienced some trouble with the supposed captive bolts on the SARJ covers actually coming free. Houston is discussing the forward plan in light of this situation.

Ammonia coolant recharge complete, but crew runs into bolt issue with SARJ covers. Read our full story.

There's also a washer that's escaped from the cover that Mike is trying to fish back out of the SARJ.

A bolt has floated away from Mike as he was taking one of the SARJ covers off.

The system recharge has been accomplished. Drew now will spend some time venting the residual ammonia out of the transfer lines that stretch from the Port 1 storage tank out to the refilled thermal system on P6.

Meanwhile, Mike has moved on to the second major activity for this spacewalk. He is removing covers surrounding the port-side Solar Alpha Rotary Joint to begin applying fresh grease to the ring that allows the power-generating wings rotate and track the sun. This lubing work will take a couple of hours.

Mike Fincke talked about this Port 6 truss ammonia loop refilling during a pre-flight interview:

"Since we're the last shuttle-based EVA, we're doing things in advance for routine preventative maintenance just like with our automobiles, so while Drew is working mainly with charging our ammonia system, and this isn't your household cleaner ammonia. This is high-grade industrial ammonia so we have to be super careful not to get it on us or to spill it because it's quite dangerous if we brought it back inside.

"But we're going to recharge the ammonia lines so, for our air conditioning, not internal air conditioning but mainly it's the external thermal control loop and, so we have a small leak in there that's been known for a long and, just like any car you have to recharge your air conditioning system every couple years.

"Well, we won't have the shuttle in a couple years so we're preemptively going to charge up, fully charge up our ammonia system while we can 'cause there's a series of jumpers that we have to go across including the rotating Solar Alpha Rotary Joint so we have some jumpers which, connecting two lines, so we have a series of hoses that will fully charge our ammonia system."

Five pounds of ammonia is flowing from a storage reservoir on the Port 1 truss outboard to the space station's Port 6 truss photovoltaic thermal control loop. This servicing will replenish the P6 loop that has a tiny leak and needs to be topped off.

With a successful leak check confirmed by Mission Control, Drew is opening the final plumbing valves in the ammonia flow path.

Working at the Ammonia Tank Assembly on the Port 1 truss, Mike has configured the system to begin the system recharge out to P6. And a leak check is underway to verify all in is readiness for the flow.

In a pre-flight interview, Drew Feustel described this coolant servicing job:

"The ammonia fill is also a very time consuming job, not a lot of work to do aside from opening and closing valves and mating and demating ammonia lines but that in itself is fairly tricky and wrought with peril so we will do our best.

"We've trained hard for that activity and we'll do our best to not let any ammonia leak out at that, because if it does that involves some other actions on our part to allow that ammonia to what we call bake out or sublimate off of the spacesuits before we go back inside. It's not a substance we like to take inside of the space station with us."

The initial setup task has been completed by re-establishing the jumper line between the Port 3 and Port 4 trusses to bridge the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint. The spacewalkers back on Friday morning had set up this umbilical and conditioned it for today, but had to demate one end so the SARJ could rotate freely in between EVAs. With this jumper back in place again, the plumbing runs continuously from the ammonia tank on the Port 1 truss all the way to the loop that will be refilled on P6.

Drew and Mike have egressed the airlock, gotten their tool bags organized and headed off toward the port-side of the International Space Station to begin working on the coolant loop refill.

In a pre-flight interview, Drew Feustel offered this preview of the spacewalk:

"Mike Fincke and I go out on EVA 2, Mike comes out the door first, we call him essentially EV 1 for the day and we each take turns leading each day's activities. We go out on EVA 2 and that whole day is really dedicated to two things, refilling one of the port radiators with ammonia, and lubricating the solar array rotary joint on the port side of the space station."

EVA BEGINS. The spacewalkers switched their suits to internal battery power at 2:05 a.m. EDT, marking the official start time for today's EVA by Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke. This is the second of four spacewalks planned during Endeavour's mission at the International Space Station.

Depressurization is complete and Mike has opened the Quest airlock's outer hatch leading to space.

Airlock depressurization has begun in advance of today's EVA.

With Drew and Mike now inside the section of the airlock that will be depressurized shortly, the inner hatch to the rest of the International Space Station been closed.

Final steps in the suitup process are being completed now. The spacewalkers are being outfitted with the SAFER backpacks that would enable an untethered astronaut to fly back to the station.

Astronauts Andrew Feustel and Michael Fincke suited up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk Sunday to top off the ammonia coolant in one of the International Space Station's solar arrays and to lubricate a massive solar array drive mechanism to reduce long term wear and tear.

Read our full story.

The latest version of the NASA Television schedule (Rev. F) can be downloaded here.

Inside the Quest airlock module, the spacewalkers are climbing into their spacesuits for today's EVA. Preparations are tracking on the schedule toward a start time a little after 2 a.m.

It's a day for spacewalking. The astronauts have been awakened to start Flight Day 7 for EVA No. 2. The excursion by Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke is scheduled to begin around 2:15 a.m. EDT to perform some preventative maintenance outside the International Space Station.


Read our earlier status center coverage.