The fifth and final spacewalk of the STS-123 mission is scheduled for early Sunday morning Israel time
Astronauts Robert Behnken and Mike Forman completed the fourth spacewalk on mission STS-123 on Friday at 00:28 EST, 06:28 Israel time, after six hours and 24 minutes.
The two replaced a damaged control component of the station's electrical system, but on their way to replace the fuse they ran into problems disconnecting the power cable from the station's Z1 component. With the help of Rick Lineman who coordinated the activity from the station, the two also conducted experiments on sealing methods for the shuttle's heat protection tiles. The technique used a sealing device known as the Tile Repair Ablator Dispenser that applied a sealant known as Shuttle Tile Ablator-54 to the tiles that had been prepared ahead of time into the crack in the tiles. The tile samples will be returned to Earth for laboratory experiments.
Next Friday, the astronauts will scan the heat shield using the shuttle's robotic arm. Banken and Forman will perform the fifth and final spacewalk on Saturday, 17:23 EST (23:23 Israel time). Another task will be the installation of the OBSS component on the space station. This component will be returned by the crew of the shuttle Discovery on mission STS-124, the next shuttle mission scheduled for late April.
