Spacewalkers enter the airlock
Walheim and Love
Three pieces of equipment will be moved during today's spacewalk; two areas of damage could be inspected.
On the mission's third spacewalk today, astronaut Stanley 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.
Love will begin the spacewalk at 8:40 a.m. EST by stepping into the footrests on the robot arm. Rex Walheim will detach the European SOLAR experiment compartment and hand it to Love, who will hold the collection of three experiments, while the station arm moves him to the Columbus module, where SOLAR will be attached. SOLAR will measure the spectrum of light from the sun.
The pair are suiting up in the crew airlock. Walheim wears a spacesuit with an unbroken, red line. Love wears a spacesuit with a broken, red line.
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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