Live in orbit: Spacewalk ends at station

Two American astronauts are back in the International Space Station after one of them spotted slight damage on one of his spacesuit gloves, prompting flight controllers to cut short an excursion outside the outpost.

Endeavour mission specialist Rick Mastracchio detected the damage about four hours and 17 minutes into a spacewalk primarily aimed at preparing a massive girder equipped with solar wings for a move out to the end of the station's central truss. The move is scheduled to take place during NASA's next station assembly mission, which is scheduled for launch in October.

Performing his third spacewalk in five days, Mastracchio noted a small hole in the thumb of his lefthand glove and less obvious damage to his righthand glove.

The hole, which penetrated two of five layers that comprise the glove, is clearly visible in this NASA image (click to enlarge) that came to us courtesy of Robert Pearlman of collectspace.com:














The image was taken after Mastracchio reentered the station. Check out a high-resolution version here: Glove Damage

The damage was detected during a routine inspection. Periodic inspections have been a requirement since post-flight examinations of a glove worn by spacewalker Robert Curbeam showed damage that went undetected during a mission in December.

NASA flight rules now call for a spacewalker to terminate work if damage is found during these routine inspections, which are done about every half-hour.

Mastracchio has a spare pair of gloves on board, so he still would be able to carry out another excursion if need be. Mastracchio is the most qualified onboard to perform repairs to a gouge in tiles on the underside of Endeavour. He carried out thermal vacuum chamber tests of a specially-designed "goo-gun" and an ablative tile repair material during the recovery from the 2003 Columbia accident.

A decision on whether to send spacewalkers to repair the gouge is expected by Thursday.

Anderson and Endeavour mission specialist Dave Williams are scheduled to perform the last of four scheduled spacewalks on the mission on Friday, although that excursion might be pushed back a day. Any tile repair likely would be done on this spacewalk. Otherwise a fifth excursion would have to be added and the shuttle's stay at the station would have to be extended.

Today's spacewalk began at 9:37 a.m. and concluded at 4:05 p.m. The planned 6.5-hour outing was cut to five hours and 28 minutes.

Mastracchio now has tallied 18 hours and 13 minutes of work during three spacewalks. Anderson has chalked up 13 hours and nine minutes during two outings.

The spacewalk was the 91st to be carried out during the assembly and maintenance of the station, the first two building blocks of which were launched in late 1998.

A total of 562 hours and 57 minutes of spacewalking work has been recorded so far.