Love holds experiment while the robot arm moves them both
Walheim and Love
Spacewalkers moving experiment module
Holding a solar experiment package, Stan Love is moving on the Canada Arm II, which he will ride to the Columbus module.
"We've almost got clearance of EuTEF (another experiment package)," said robot arm operator Leland Melvin.
Rex Walheim helped unbolt the experiment package. The spacewalk has fallen a few minutes behind schedule, said NASA commentator John Ira Petty.
Love and Walheim will bolt the solar experiment on the Columbus module.
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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