Second Spacewalk To Share Tools

Everything Endeavour spacewalkers needed to know they learned in kindergarten.

Well, how to share, at least, which is turning out to be an important skill on teh shuttle crew's 15-day mission.

After losing a bag of tools during the shuttle mission's first spacewalk on Tuesday, astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough today will share two grease guns in order to tackle the second spacewalk's tasks.

Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve Bowen shared their tools Tuesday after an untethered bag holding two grease guns floated away from Stefanyshyn-Piper. They got their work done ahead of schedule.

The main focus of today's spacewalk will be to continue cleaning and lubricating a faulty joint on the station's starboard side. It's supposed to rotate solar wings like paddle wheels, but damage from grinding bearings has kept it from turning continuously for more than a year.

The spacewalkers will also try to do some lubrication without the grease guns, using "wet" terrycloth mitts covered with a layer of Braycote grease.

The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 1:45 p.m. and last six hours and 30 minutes.

You can watch it live here at The Flame Trench -- click on the NASA TV picture above to launch a viewer. You can read the schedule of mission events being broadcast on NASA TV here.

Other spacewalk assignments today include moving two carts that run along the staton's main truss so they'll be in the proper position for a later mission. Kimrbough will also lube the grappling mechanism on the station's robotic arm, which has been sticking.

It will be the fourth career spacewalk for Stefanyshyn-Piper and the first for Kimbrough, who grew up watching Kennedy Space Center launches during visits to his grandparents in Mims.

Inside the station today, crews will continue to hook up a system designed to recycle urine and other wastewater into drinking water, and a box that will test the first samples run through the system.

This morning's wake-up song delivered from Houston's Mission Control Center was for mission specialist Don Pettit, who has been overseeing transfer of cargo from the Leonardo moving van ahead of schedule. He's also operated the station's robotic arm during spacewalks.

Pettit credited his wife, Micki, with singing Bandella's version of "Summertime." The band also includes astronauts Steve Robinson - a flight communicator for the STS-126 mission - Chris Hadfield and Caddy Coleman, according to NASA.

"When you're orbiting Earth, someplace is always summertime," Pettit said.