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Washington (AFP) May 21, 2010 Two US astronauts completed their final spacewalk Friday at the International Space Station, replacing batteries before heading home. Garrett Reisman and Michael Good reentered the orbiting station's decompression chamber at 1:13 pm (1713 GMT) after the Atlantis crew's third spacewalk in five days. Their sortie lasted six hours and 46 minutes. The pair plugged a new ammonia jumper cable into the orbiting space station's huge framework and installed two new batteries that store energy collected by the station's large solar panels. Each battery weighs 375 pounds (170 kilograms) and measures about the size of a three-foot (one-meter) box. Good and another fellow astronaut swapped out another four batteries during another spacewalk on Wednesday. Batteries usually last five to six years but the ones that were replaced had functioned for nine years. The old batteries will be brought back to Earth aboard Atlantis. During their spacewalk, the two astronauts also transferred a grapple fixture from the shuttle to the station and reconfigured some tools. During the 12-day mission, Atlantis and its six-member crew unloaded over 12 tons of equipment, including the communications antenna, power storage batteries and a radiator. The biggest single element is the five-ton Rassver research module, or MRM-1, which will provide additional storage space and a new docking port for Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. The Rassver -- "Dawn" in Russian -- was permanently attached to the bottom of the space station's Zarya module. It carries important hardware on its exterior including a radiator, airlock and a European robotic arm. Atlantis will undock from the ISS for the very last time on Sunday, capping the shuttle's 25-year career during which it has logged some 115 million miles (185 million kilometers). It is due back in Florida on Wednesday at 8:44 am (1244 GMT). Only two more shuttle launches remain -- one in September for Discovery and the final blast off for Endeavour in November -- before the curtain falls on this era of human spaceflight. The United States will then rely on Russia to take astronauts to the station aboard three-seater Soyuz spacecraft until a new fleet of commercial space taxis is operational.
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Crews Opening Rassvet Hatches And Prepares For SpacewalkHouston TX (SPX) May 21, 2010 The hatches between the International Space Station and its new Russian Rassvet module were opened for the first time at 5:52 a.m. CDT Thursday. Also known as Mini-Research Module 1, Rassvet is almost 20 feet long, 7.7 feet wide and weighs 11,188 pounds. Carrying almost 6,500 pounds of internal and external cargo to the station, Rassvet has eight science work stations and will be used both ... read more |
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