Spacewalking astronauts now are engaged in a complicated repair job outside the International Space Station, one that comes with a significant shock hazard and the potential loss of a massive American solar wing.
Station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani are taking great care to engage latch fasteners on the housing of a broken motor to make certain the solar wing at the starboard end of the station's central truss is not inadvertently released.
The work is a critical run-up to the planned removal and replacement of the faulty motor -- a job that must be done when the station is in Earth's shadow to avoid electrical shock from the high-voltage solar wing.
Designed to pivot the arrays and keep them pointed at the sun, the motor also acts as an electrical conduit that transfers power from the solar wing to station systems. It also serves as a mechanical connection between the central truss and the solar wing, so the astronauts put spare latch fasteners in place to hold the truss and the solar wing together while the motor replacement work is completed.
You can check out the step-by-step procedures the astronauts are following here: Spacewalk Timeline.
And you can watch the action unfold here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer and refresh this page for periodic updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment