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US shuttle mission to ISS extended
Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2007 NASA said on Tuesday it would extend the space shuttle Discovery's mission by one day to allow for a closer inspection of a flawed rotary joint that turns the solar arrays aboard the International Space Station. The decision was taken by the director of the orbiting space lab, Mike Suffredini, on Monday and relayed Tuesday to the Discovery crew by mission control in Houston. As the US space agency made preparations for the prolonged mission, two astronauts from the shuttle embarked on the third of five spacewalks on Tuesday outside the space station. After less than three hours, astronauts Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock successfully attached the Port 6 truss segment, a large 16-ton metal beam needed to deploy a third solar antenna for the station. They then began removing covers or "shrouds" from electronic equipment boxes on the truss, which had been stored on the top of the space station for seven years. With the truss in place, another set of solar arrays were to be unfurled later on Tuesday, NASA television said. In a fourth space walk set for Thursday, astronauts will examine the crucial rotary joint for the solar arrays after having found small metal shavings and unusual wear in the joint in an earlier space walk on Sunday. The inspection will require a space walk of more than six hours as the Discovery remains docked at the ISS. As a result, the shuttle is scheduled to return to Earth on November 7 instead of November 6. The problem was not insurmountable, said space station director Suffredini, saying it was merely a question of time. Suffredini also said the complication would not affect plans for another shuttle mission in December to deliver Europe's Columbus laboratory to the station. The rotary joint helps spin a set of the power-generating solar panels that were installed four months ago. During his space walk on Sunday, astronaut Daniel Tani picked up metal shaving samples in the joint with adhesive tape so that engineers on Earth could analyze them and find the origin of the problem. The ISS, a giant manned laboratory orbiting 240 miles (390 kilometers) above Earth, is aimed to be a potential jumping-off point for further exploration of the solar system. The 100-billion-dollar space station, supported by 16 countries, is considered key to US ambitions to send a manned mission to Mars and is due to be completed within three years. The current mission is making space exploration history as shuttle Commander Pam Melroy, 46, and Whitson, 47, are the first women to hold the reins of the two spacecraft at the same time. The shuttle is to be retired in 2010 to make way for Constellation, a new space exploration project that aims to put humans back on the moon by 2020. js-bur-ch-ddl/mac Related Links Shuttle at NASA Watch NASA TV via Space.TV Space Shuttle News at Space-Travel.Com
Shuttle may stay in space extra day for station inspection
Washington (AFP) Oct 29, 2007The US shuttle Discovery will likely stay in orbit a day longer than planned to give astronauts time to examine a mechanical glitch on the International Space Station, NASA said Monday. |
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