Spacewalking astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson are marching through assembly work outside the International Space Station, striving to upgrade an outpost radio communication system.
Anchored to the end of the station's 57-foot robot arm, Mastracchio is hauling an S-band communications antenna from the P-6 truss atop the U.S. Unity module toward the innermost section on the left side of the outpost's central truss.
The Canadian-built arm is being operated by Endeavour pilot Charlie Hobaugh, who is carefully moving his crewmate from one work site to another outside the joined shuttle-station complex.
"Great view of the nose of the orbiter," said Mastracchio, a mission specialist who is performing his third spacewalk in five days.
Fellow spacewalker Clay Anderson is finishing up work over at the P-1 truss, preparing it for the installation of the S-band antenna. He's cleaning up the work site there after successfully installing a signal processor and transponder for the radio communications system.
Said Anderson: "We're having a bit of a wrestling match, but I think I'm winning."
You can watch a live webcast of the spacewalk here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above, or below the Mission Webcast headline, to launch our NASA TV viewer. Start-up time is about 20 seconds. Refresh this page for periodic updates.
IMAGE NOTE: Click to enlarge the NASA screen grab. It shows Endeavour mission specialist Rick Mastracchio perched on the end of the International Space Station's robot arm. The image shows the P-6 truss, which is scheduled to be moved from its current position atop the U.S. Unity module to the far left end of the station's central truss during a mission in October. Note the two solar wing blanket boxes. They house solar blankets that were folded up like Venetian blinds and stowed in the boxes on missions last September and December. The wings had to be folded up so they would not break off during the upcoming move.
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