Astronauts Nicole Stott and Danny Olivas successfully tackled a hefty tank removal job at the international space station Tuesday, reports the Associated Press. The space walk is one of several scheduled during the space shuttle Discovery’s seven-day mission to the International Space Station.
The astronauts disconnected a 1,300-pound ammonia tank and held it steady while a robot arm retrieved it. They then installed a new tank on the outside of the station.
The tanks are massive by spacewalking standards: Nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, 7 feet (2.1 meters) wide and 4 feet (1.2 meters) high. The old one has been up there since 2002.
A moment of concern arose 1 1/2 hours into Tuesday evening’s spacewalk when Olivas noticed fraying on the index finger of his right glove, following the tank removal. Mission Control evaluated the problem for several minutes before giving him a “go” to remain outside. The stitching defect was deemed minor; deeper damage likely would have forced an early end to the spacewalk.
Minutes later, Stott reported a high reading of her carbon dioxide levels. When asked if she felt any symptoms, she replied, “No. Nothing.” Mission Control said it appeared to be “a weird sensor” and that her suit was operating fine.
Then there was a half-hour communication outage between Mission Control and the shuttle-station complex. A thunderstorm at a satellite relay station in Guam was to blame.
“You’re going to be on your own here,” Mission Control told the 13 space fliers before contact was lost. The spacewalkers’ work to retrieve some science experiments was rearranged because of the outage.
Everything went smoothly after that, and the 6 1/2-hour spacewalk ended early Wednesday with all objectives accomplished. “Good day’s work,” Olivas said.
In addition, the crew of Discovery helped move in the treadmill named after popular comedian Stephen Colbert. It was one of the first items to be unloaded from the moving van that was delivered by Discovery.
The treadmill is in more than 100 pieces. The bags containing all those parts will remain in a corner of the space station until September, when Stott has time to put together the running machine.
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