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November 22, 2008 | Afternoon Edition |
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CBS NEWS STS-126 STATUS REPORT: 51
Posted: 2:30 PM, 11/22/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Analyst
Changes and additions:
SR-49 (11/22/08): Urine processor restarted; crew gears up for third spacewalk
SR-50 (11/22/08): Spacewalk begins; urine processor troubleshooting continues
SR-51 (11/22/08): Cleaning goes smoothly in initial stages of EVA
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2:30 PM, 11/22/08, Update: Clean goes smoothly in initial stages of spacewalk
An hour and a half into a planned seven-hour spacewalk, astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Stephen Bowen are running about a half hour ahead of schedule cleaning and lubricating the space station's right-side solar array rotary joint.
Stefanyshyn-Piper has installed the first of six bearing assemblies slated for replacement today while Bowen is working on a different section of the joint's 10-foot-wide drive gear. Because of lost grease guns, the astronauts are sharing tools and Bowen is using grease-impregnated wipes to put a coating of lubricant on the gear to collect metallic debris as he scrapes it off damaged bearing race.
"Steve, it looks like you're still scraping over there?" astronaut Robert "Shane Kimbrough called from inside the shuttle Endeavour.
"Yes, I am," Bowen replied. "I like this technique a little bit better because you can see more clearly where the (debris) pancakes are that you're chipping off. ... I feel like this really is the better method."
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Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-126 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-126 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
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© 2006 Independent Media Institute |
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CBS NEWS STS-126 STATUS REPORT: 50
Posted: 1:05 PM, 11/22/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Analyst
Changes and additions:
SR-46 (11/21/08): Urine processing underway; crew news conference on tap
SR-47 (11/21/08): Urine processor shuts down again; troubleshooting continues
SR-48 (11/21/08): Engineers troubleshoot apparent problem with motor in urine processor
SR-49 (11/22/08): Urine processor restarted; crew gears up for third spacewalk
SR-50 (11/22/08): Spacewalk begins; urine processor urine processor troubleshooting continues
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1:05 PM, 11/22/08, Update: Spacewalk begins
Floating in the space station's Quest airlock module, astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Stephen Bowen switched their spacesuits to internal battery power at 1:01 p.m., 44 minutes ahead of schedule, to officially kick off a planned seven-hour spacewalk.
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The goal of today's excursion, the third of four planned for the shuttle Endeavour's mission, is to finish cleaning and lubricating the station's stalled right-side solar array rotary joint. The astronauts also plan to replace six of the joint's 12 trundle bearing assemblies, or TBAs, which grip the main drive gear on three surfaces with pressure-loaded rollers. One TBA was replaced during a shuttle flight last June, four others were replaced during spacewalks Tuesday and Thursday and a sixth was removed and re-installed after cleaning.
This is the 117th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began 10 years ago this week and the 18th so far this year. It is the second spacewalk for Bowen and the fifth overall for Stefanyshyn-Piper, who participated in two EVAs during a 2006 station assembly mission. Going into today's spacewalk, station EVA assembly time stood at 732 hours and 25 minutes. The total for Endeavour's crew through two spacewalks was 13 hours and 37 minutes.
Back at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, meanwhile, engineers are continuing efforts to figure out what's causing problems with a vacuum distillation unit in the space station's newly installed water recycling system.
The distillation unit, a critical component in a system designed to convert urine into potable water, was restarted earlier today to collect additional data and insight into what might have caused a centrifuge motor slowdown and high current draw Friday. A similar "signature" was seen again today and again, the urine processor shut itself down. Troubleshooting continues.
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Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-126 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-126 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
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