Live In Orbit: Astronauts Fail To Deploy Platform

Spacewalking astronauts will be on to some maintenance work on the International Space Station's construction crane after failing to free up an experiment platform that will not fully deploy.

Discovery mission specialist Ricky Arnold hammered a jammed latching pin out of the way, but he and spacewalking partner Joe Acaba still were unable to set up the Unpressurized Cargo Carrier Attachment System. Mission Control consequently called off the planned deployment of a similar experiment platform -- the Payload Attachment System, or PAS -- on the starboard side of the station's central truss.

"We are no-go on doing the PAS deploy," spacecraft communicator Rick Davis radioed up from the MCC in Houston.

The astronauts are tying down the partially deployed experiment platform and then will be moving on to their next task.

Arnold and Acaba will be lubricating the Latching End Effector -- or the LEE -- on the Space Station Remote Manipulator System. Also know as "The Big Arm," the 57-foot robotic arm serves as the primary construction crane at the station.

You can watch the action unfold here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box at the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage. Be sure to refresh this page, too, for periodic updates.