Crews to Fold Arrays, Prep for Spacewalk Repair Tasks

As Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station sail above Earth today, the STS-117 and Expedition 15 crews will continue retracting solar arrays and preparing for repair work during Friday’s spacewalk.

STS-117 Mission Specialists Jim Reilly and Danny Olivas will review procedures and practice techniques they will use during the spacewalk set to begin at 1:38 p.m. EDT Friday. The first task of the extravehicular activity is the repair of a thermal blanket that pulled away from the orbital maneuvering system pod on the rear of the shuttle.

This afternoon, the STS-117 crew will resume retraction of the starboard P6 solar array. Almost half of the 31½ array bays were retracted Wednesday. If the arrays are not fully retracted today, efforts will resume Friday with the assistance of the spacewalkers.

About an hour and 20 minutes before this morning’s scheduled wakeup call, the crews were awakened by a false alarm on the station. The alarm was triggered by the restart of Russian navigation computers that provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion system providing backup.

Credit: NASA

Source: NASA