Spacewalking astronauts scaled to the top of the International Space Station today and fixed a spare communications antenna that wasn't secured properly to a girder-like truss.Atlantis mission specialists Stephen Bowen and Mike Good bolted the antenna in place and then did a "wiggle test" to make certain the antenna was properly anchored on top of the station's Z1 truss segment. Bowen and crewmate Garrett Reisman tried to install the antenna during a spacewalk Monday but when they tried to bolt it down, there was a millimeter gap between the antenna's boom and the truss.
Bowen and Good unscrewed the bolts and repositioned the boom. Then they were able to bolt it securely to the truss."Great job," fellow astronaut Steve Swanson said from Mission Control. "That does it."
The Ku-band antenna is used to transmit data and television between the station and the ground. The spare unit was hauled up to the station aboard shuttle Atlantis along with the batteries that were installed earlier in the spacewalk.
The antenna work was the last major task for the second of three spacewalks planned during Atlantis' weeklong say at the station. Good and Reisman will make the final excursion on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment