Atlantis spacewalker Mike Massimino hoped for smooth sailing after a frustrating start to today's repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. No such luck.
He successfully attached a capture plate to the front of a broken spectrograph, which is needed to capture 111 tiny screws. But his power drill wouldn't work.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Massimino said.
A green light indicated the drill should be working, but it wouldn't turn.
Massimino had to head back to shuttle Atlantis' airlock to pick up a spare power tool. He'll also replenish his oxygen supply.
The entire repair of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph was slated to take four hours, 30 minutes. But the spacewalk is four hours old, and Massimino hasn't begun removing the screws that will allow access to the internal electronics.
Once Massimino's gets more oxygen, the next concern would be his partner's spacesuit battery power. But mission controllers say Mike "Bueno" Good's battery is OK to last nine hours.
So, if the duo is to complete all the day's tasks, it looks like they could rival their nearly eight-hour spacewalk on Friday - the eighth longest ever.
Atlantis flew 350 miles above the southeastern coast of Florida as Massimino refreshed his oxygen supply.
1 comment:
Brings to mind the $40 million fuel tanks that had bad wiring.
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