Switching gears a little over four hours into a critical spacewalking repair job, NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski now is back to stitching up tears in a damaged solar wing at the International Space Station.
Mission Control just voiced up a warning that time is running out for the surgical work on the ripped and rippled solar blanket. So Parazynski is scrambling to finish putting four more stitches in place.
He is stringing the second stitch into place at this point. Mission Control wants he and spacewalking partner Douglas Wheelock to start heading back to the U.S. Quest airlock, which is half a football field away, by about 10:53 a.m. EDT -- or four hours and 50 minutes into the spacewalk. Doing so would enable the astronauts to be finish up within seven hours -- or 20 minutes later than planned. The stop time is based on the amount of breathing air left in their spacesuits as well as dwindling battery power levels.
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