Love closes the airlock hatch
Walheim and Love
Checking out "the Love Crater"
Rex Walheim and Stan Love did not have time during the spacewalk to photograph the damaged solar array rotary joint at the end of the space station's starboard truss.
Love, however, did have time to photograph "the Love Crater," a rough area on a handrail near the entrance to the crew airlock. The astronauts rubbed an overglove on the crater to see if it is the cause of damage to several spacewalker's gloves.
The flaw got its name because it was spotted Monday by astronomer Love on his first spacewalk.
During the day, the pair the installed two European science modules on the Columbus laboratory and moved a 1,200-pound gyroscope into the payload bay for return to Earth and refurbishment.
EuTEF (European Technology Exposure Facility) carries nine space exposure experiments. Additionally, they installed a solar observatory and relocated a failed gyroscope to the shuttle's payload bay.
Love's glove was slightly damaged, but he was given permission to continue working.
The spacewalk officially began when the pair switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:07 a.m. EST. Walheim's helmet camera is No. 18, while his spacesuit has an unbroken line. Love's camera is No. 16, while his spacesuit has a broken 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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