Live in orbit: Airlock opening; spacewalk begins

Live: Refresh this page for periodic updates and the latest still image from NASA TV. Click on the picture for a larger view. You can also click here to play NASA TV live video in a 2nd smaller window.








Walheim and Love

Spacewalkers beginning mission

Rex Walheim and Stan Love are preparing to leave the airlock before the official 8:40 a.m. EST start time.

The airlock began opening about 8:05 a.m. EST. The spacewalk officially began when the pair switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:07 a.m.

On the mission's third spacewalk, Love will function like a human forklift, holding three massive - but weightless - pieces of equipment while he is attached to the space station robot arm. On separate swings of the arm, he will move two European experiment modules and a gyroscope.

If the 6.5-hour spacewalk runs ahead of schedule, Walheim and Love will have several additional tasks: inspecting the starboard solar alpha rotary joint and inspecting damage to a handrail that might be causing glove damage.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at 9:06 a.m. Wednesday at Kennedy Space Center, shortly before the Navy shoots down a low-orbiting, non-functioning spy satellite that carries a toxic half-ton of hydrazine rocket fuel.

Click for interactive graphic on Columbus installation.

Click for flight day 9 execute package.

Click for STS-122 fact sheet.

Click for NASA-TV schedule, which details mission events.















The SOLAR and EuTEF modules sit on a rack in the shuttle's payload bay.