Another team performed the spacewalk on Wednesday and continued the work of the team that began installing the new systems on the space station on Tuesday
Amit Oren - the knowledge site
The second spacewalk of the STS-115 mission is now enshrined in the pages of history. STS-115 mission specialists, Dan Burbank and Steve McClellan, completed the spacewalk today at 19:16 (times given are Israeli time) after prolonged efforts to prepare the combined P3/P4 beam of the International Space Station for operation.
The beam, which weighs 17.5 tons and is long, contains an array of solar cells, and was connected to the station on Tuesday. The P3/P4 will provide power, information and communication services to the station. The solar cell arrays will be deployed throughout Thursday and will double the power generation capacity of the station.
Burbank and McClellan began their walk at 12:05 p.m. and continued their planned activities, which included removing the lift locks and restraints from the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ). Once activated, this system will allow the solar cell arrays to track the movement of the sun. System activity will be tested later today.
