Blogger update, 4:46 p.m.: The power supply installed today in a Hubble spectrograph is working properly, the Space Telescope Operations Control Center has reported to mission controllers. Functional tests of spectrograph channels are next. It was a struggle, but two Atlantis spacewalkers have completed an important repair to a Hubble Space Telescope science instrument that broke down in 2004.
Mike Massimino clamped shut a new cover on the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph after installing a new low voltage power card.
The new cover required only two locking pins, in contrast to the 111 screws that held on the old cover.
It was nearly six-and-a-half hours into a spacewalk with partner Mike Good that was only intended to last that long.
Because the job took two hours longer than expected, mission managers have dropped today's second task, the installation of a protective thermal shield on a telescope bay.
"I think the guys outside have done enough, and we're going to be very proud when they come in at the end of this," one of the astronauts inside shuttle Atlantis said.
Engineers at the Space Telescope Operations Control Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland are conducting an "aliveness" test to confirm that the electrical connections are working on the repaired spectrograph.
As with the camera repaired Saturday, additional "functional" tests will follow to determine if three spectrograph channels - in safe mode since 2004 - are back in working order.
Massimino and Good are expected to wrap up their spacewalk close to 6 p.m.
It was not immediately known if today's unfinished task would change the lineup of activities planned for Monday's spacewalk, the last scheduled during the 11-day STS-125 mission.
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