NASA added three days to the shuttle mission Endeavor

Tonight the second spacewalk will take place. Another spacewalk, the fourth in number, will take place on August 17

The shuttle project managers decided to extend the Endeavor shuttle mission by three days after the successful activation of the power transfer system between the International Space Station and the shuttle. Endeavor is currently scheduled to leave the space station on August 20 and land on August 22. At the same time, NASA also decided to add a fourth spacewalk on August 17. This spacewalk will be intended to repair the damage caused to the shuttle, if it is decided by NASA following the photographs, some of them also three-dimensional, broadcast by the astronauts who examined the damage during the first spacewalk.

The SSPTS system routes power from the station to the shuttle during its docking at the station and allows the shuttle to save on the materials required to produce electricity and stay longer in space.

Astronauts Dave Williams and Rick Mastracino will go on a spacewalk for the second time today. Their main mission is to replace the malfunctioning altitude control gyroscope on the International Space Station. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 18:30 p.m. Israel time and last six and a half hours.

The broken gyroscope is one of four control moment gyros (CMGs) located in the Z1 skeleton component of the station and used for the cruise control of the station. The new component arrived at the station on the cargo deck of the shuttle Endeavour.

In the meantime, experts at NASA continue to analyze the images taken as mentioned on Sunday (yesterday) during the targeted scan carried out by STS-118 crew members in five suspicious areas of the shuttle's heat shield.