After removing a nearly 16-ton truss segment from shuttle Discovery's payload bay on Wednesday, it's time to install it on the International Space Station. Discovery's seven astronauts aim to do that today, during the first of the 13-day mission's three planned spacewalks.
Spacewalkers Steve Swanson, a veteran of two prior spacewalks in 2007, and Richard Arnold, who is making his first foray into the vacuum of space, spent the night "camping out" in the Quest airlock's lower atmospheric pressure.
The procedure reduces the time they'll need to breathe pure oxygen this morning to purge nitrogen from their systems, minimizing the chance of decompression sickness, or "the bends."
Discovery's crew and three station residents will wake up at 8:13 a.m., and preparations for the spacewalk will start within a half hour.
By 11:18 a.m., mission specialist John Phillips, backed up by new station flight engineer Koichi Wakata, will begin positioning the Starboard 6 truss for installation with the station's robotic arm. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 1:13 p.m. and last 6.5 hours.
The S6 truss should be mated to the S5 truss a little after 2 p.m., and electrical connections about an hour later.
Check out this NASA TV schedule to see the timing of all the mission highlights.
You can watch the whole spacewalk live here at The Flame Trench. Just click on the NASA TV still image on the right side of the page to launch a viewer.
You can also read this NASA press kit for more background on Discovery's STS-119 mission.
IMAGES: The Starboard 6 truss is in its "parked" position overnight on the International Space Station, held by the station's Canadarm2. Source: NASA TV.
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