Two Discovery astronauts embarked on the first spacewalk on mission STS-119 to install the station's final corridor component and free the box that holds the solar collectors
Astronauts Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold began their spacewalk on Thursday at 19:16 Israel time when they disconnected from the station and switched to powering the space suit using an electric battery. After exiting the airlock cabin door, they began a series of tasks designed to assist in the installation of the S6 station avenue component on the far right side of the station corridor. This is Swanson's third spacewalk and Arnold's first. The spacewalk is expected to last for about 6.5 hours, that is, until 02:00 a.m. that time.
They are assisted by Koichi Wakta and John Phillips who operate the station's robotic arm that moved S6 the missing distance of about one and a half meters on the right side of unit S5. On Wednesday, by the way, the astronauts used the robotic arm to retrieve the S6 from the cargo deck.
The two spacewalkers rode the station's robotic arm to guide S6 to its final location at approximately 14:17 PM EST (20:17 PM Israel Time). The connection occurred when the station was hovering over the Atlantic Ocean, near the Cape Verde Islands. Later, the two secured the component in place and screwed in all the required screws as well as the electrical wires required to operate the component.
They later removed the launch harnesses from the radiator cooling the S6 component and from boxes containing the new solar collectors. Today, Friday, the astronauts will try to deploy the solar collectors under remote control, and if necessary, the astronauts will assist with this as well, in the next spacewalk expected on Saturday. Discovery must leave the station on Wednesday, when a Soyuz spacecraft will arrive with a new crew.
One response
The fact that they move around at a very high speed doesn't interfere with their normal life?