Crew members from the shuttle Endeavour and space station entered the newly set-up Tranquility node and cupola late Friday, but the dome's window shutters remained closed, denying astronauts the first spectacular panoramic views of Earth from the orbiting outpost.

US astronaut Bob Behnken and his British-born partner Nicholas Patrick will at 9:10 pm (0200 GMT Sunday) begin their second space walk of the Endeavour mission, hooking up exterior fluid lines for the massive Tranquility node.

NASA said the cupola's shutters would be opened Tuesday, giving station occupants not only an out-of-this world room with a view, but also vital access for monitoring space walks and docking operations.

On their first outing, the pair used a large mechanical arm to hoist into place the 2,600-cubic-foot (74-cubic-meter) addition to the space station, built for NASA by the European group Thales Alenia Space in their Turin factory.

The US space agency said astronauts that entered the newly attached module on Friday had to initially wear goggles and masks to protect against floating debris left over from its installation.

The cupola can accommodate two crew members at a time and is equipped with portable workstations that can control station and robotic activities.

Six windows are arrayed along its sides and another on top, all protected against the impact of tiny meteorites.

NASA said shutters and an insulation blanket would be removed from the fortified windows during the flight's third spacewalk on Tuesday, allowing first views from the deck.

Once the new room is in place, the space station will be 90 percent complete.

The mission, one of five scheduled for NASA's three shuttles before the program ends later this year after a 29-year run, comes as the US space agency re-evaluates its future after President Barack Obama effectively abandoned the US plan to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.

Constrained by soaring deficits, Obama submitted a budget to Congress that encourages NASA to focus instead on developing commercial transport alternatives to ferry astronauts to the ISS after the shuttle program ends.

The ISS, a joint project involving 16 countries, has cost around 100 billion dollars, mostly funded by the United States.

Under Obama's new budget, the orbiting research station could see its life extended by five years until 2020.

Shuttle Status News from NASA
The crew of space shuttle Endeavour awoke at 4:15 p.m. EST to the song "Too Much Stuff" by Delbert McClinton, played for Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson, who will be working as the intravehicular officer for today's spacewalk.

NOTE: There is a change in today's timeline. The cupola depressurization that was scheduled for 3:54 a.m. Sunday will not happen. Instead, that time will be used for center disk cover troubleshooting. Depress will be deferred to another day.

Cupola grapple also has been removed from the timeline to allow for additional time for troubleshooting. Also, the Mission Management Team today officially approved to add an extra docked day to the mission. The first landing opportunity now would be on Sunday, Feb. 21.

Flight day seven will focus on configuring the new Tranquility module, inside and out, for its space operations. Spacewalkers Nicholas Patrick and Bob Behnken will continue external outfitting of Tranquility by connecting fluid jumpers and remaining avionics cables, and installing covers as well as hardware to assist with future spacewalks, such as handrails and gap spanners.

Pilot Terry Virts, Mission Specialist Kathryn Hire, and Expedition 22 crew members Jeff Williams and Soichi Noguchi will work on configuring systems inside Tranquility.

earlier related report
Second STS-130 Spacewalk Tonight
All plans are go for the second spacewalk of shuttle mission STS-130 at 9:09 p.m. EST, resuming the integration of the International Space Station's new Tranquility module. The crew members from the station and shuttle Endeavour also have learned they'll have an extra day on orbit together.

Spacewalkers Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick will spend the first part of the spacewalk connecting two ammonia loops, with two lines in each loop, from the Destiny module to Tranquility, hooking the new module to the station's cooling system, and open one of those loops to initiate cooling of the module.

Then they'll install thermal covers on Tranquility's keel pin and trunnions, to prevent condensation inside the module, outfit the nadir docking port of Tranquility for the relocation of the cupola module, and install handrails. The spacewalk is scheduled to conclude at 3:39 a.m. Sunday.

Station Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineers Soichi Noguchi and T.J. Creamer, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialist Kathryn Hire will continue outfitting Tranquility's interior, including setting up the ventilation system and configuring racks

Early Saturday morning the crew members outfitting Tranquility were unable to install a center disk cover on the module's outboard docking port due to interference with the cover's attach mechanism from hardware inside the cupola; that cover protects the docking interface from debris and temperature extremes when there's no module attached to it.

The planned depressurization and grappling of the cupola at the end of the crew work day has been deferred to permit troubleshooting of that situation.

Mission managers today approved adding an extra day to the flight. That day, which will be a new Flight Day 11 beginning Wednesday afternoon, will be used to relocate two Water Recovery System racks, the Waste Hygiene Compartment and the Oxygen Generation System into Tranquility.

Those relocations were on hold pending the repairs conducted earlier in the flight, and enough run time on the system to generate needed samples for return to Earth for analysis.

Endeavour's landing now will occur Sunday night, Feb. 21.

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