Friday, February 15, 2008

Live in orbit: Experiment reaches Columbus rack














Stan Love rides the robot arm








Walheim and Love

Spacewalkers moving experiment module

Holding a solar experiment package and moving on the Canada Arm II, Stan Love delivered the experiment package to the Columbus module, which was attached Monday.

Walheim headed from the payload bay to join Love on the module to help attach the package.

"Love will basically just hang on to the package until Walheim gets there," said NASA commentator John Ira Petty.

The spacewalk has fallen about a half-hour behind schedule, Petty said.

The spacewalk officially began when the pair switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:07 a.m. EST. Walheim's helmet camera will be No. 18, while his spacesuit will have an unbroken line. Love's camera will be No. 16, while his spacesuit has a broken line.

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.

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