Astronauts prep for spacewalks amid inspections

With a high-resolution scan of the shuttle's starboard wing in work, Atlantis mission specialists Rex Walheim and Hans Schegel of the European Space Agency are gearing up for three spacewalks that will be performed at the International Space Station in the next week.

The two crewmates aim to venture outside the U.S. Quest airlock at the outpost around 9:40 a.m. EST Sunday on a mission to prepare the $1.3 billion European Columbus science laboratory for mooring to a berthing port on the starboard side of the U.S. Harmony module.

Their main job: Setting up a Power & Data Grapple Fixture that will enable the station's 57-foot Canadian construction crane to lift the 10-ton science lab out of Atlantis' cargo bay. Walheim and Schlegel also will begin work aimed at removing a nitrogen tank from a girderlike segment on the port side of the station's central truss. The tank is running low and must be replaced.

A new nitrogen tank will be installed by Walheim and Schlegel during the second spacewalk, which is scheduled to begin about 9:40 a.m. EST Tuesday. The astronauts also plan to stow the old tank in the shuttle's cargo bay so it can be returned to Earth.

Mission specialist Stanley Love will team up with lead spacewalker Walheim for a third excursion -- an outing set to begin about 8:40 a.m. EST Thursday. The aim of the spacewallk will be to attach a solar observatory and an experiment rack on the aft end of the Columbus lab. Their final task will be fetching a failed gyroscope from a storage location on the outer hull of the station and then stowing it in the shuttle's cargo bay for a return to Earth.

You can check out a basic overview for the STS-122 mission here: STS-122 Fact Sheet.

A more detailed look at the mission is in the official NASA Press Kit for the mission. Click here to download and save your own copy: STS-122 Press Kit.

You can also refresh this page for periodic mission updates, and we'll be webcasting live round-the-clock NASA TV coverage of the STS-122 mission here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the link below the image above to launch our NASA TV viewer.