Spacewalkers move to gyroscope after attaching solar experiment
Walheim and Love
Experiment module attached
After attaching a solar experiment package to the Columbus module, the Canada Arm II moved Stan Love toward a stored gyroscope that will be removed from the space station truss and stored in the payload bay.
The gyroscope failed in October 2006 and was replaced. It will be returned to Earth, refurbished and saved for a spare.
The behind-schedule spacewalk was expected to make up lost time, said NASA commentator John Ira Petty.
As Love rode the robot arm to the gyroscope, Walheim installed handrails on the Columbus module.
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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