The second spacewalk was completed

Astronauts Korev and Vogelsang rewired about half of the International Space Station's electrical cables

Astronauts Robert Korbim and Christer Vogelsang, aboard the shuttle Discovery, became electricians and apartment movers yesterday during their second spacewalk on mission STS-116. Over the course of five hours last night, they reorganized the electrical system of the space station from its temporary state to its final state and repositioned two equipment carts. As you may recall, on Wednesday the astronauts barely deployed the new solar collectors installed on the station during the previous shuttle mission. However, now the solar collectors are doing their job and producing electricity, while following the movement of the sun.

To prepare the station for this electrical work, the control center sent a series of commands to shut down about half of the station's systems.

Later, the astronauts wired two of the station's four power channels. After completing the connections, the flight controllers began sending commands to increase the power in the electrical systems in their new configuration.

The two additional channels will be wired on the third spacewalk planned for Saturday. The STS-116 crew moved the shuttle to receive its power supply from the solar arrays attached to the P4 component in preparation for additional solar collectors to be installed on the station next year.

As mentioned, the duo also moved two vans full of equipment. In doing so, they cleared a way to move the station's entire shuttle system towards the S1 component in the near future in preparation for the STS-117 mission this spring. The final mission of the spacewalkers was to reroute the cables in the Z1 component.

Pilot Bill O'Flin coordinated the spacewalk operations and Sunita Williams and John Higgenbotham operated the robotic arm.

Another activity carried out by the STS-116 crews and the station's 14th crew was the continued transfer of equipment between the shuttle and the station.