SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
*Crews Wrapping up Spacewalk Preps* 2 November 2007
Image Above: STS-120 Pilot George Zamka holds a "cufflink" apparatus in the Harmony node of the International Space Station, which will be attached to the damaged solar arrays and take the structural load off of the broken hinge during Saturday's spacewalk. Image credit: NASA TO VIEW THE IMAGE GO TO:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
The STS-120 and Expedition 16 crews have completed the configuration of the suits and tools that will be used during Saturday’s spacewalk. In addition, they have completed the robotic arm tasks that were part of the spacewalk preparations. The space station robotic arm grappled and handed off the shuttle’s arm extension, the Orbiter Boom Sensor System, or OBSS, to the shuttle robotic arm for overnight parking. The OBSS will provide support for Mission Specialist Scott Parazynski on the spacewalk, the fourth of the mission.
Parazynski and Mission Specialist Doug Wheelock will conduct the excursion, which is slated to kick off at 6:28 a.m. EDT Saturday. Parazynski will repair a torn solar array while suspended from the boom attached to the space station’s robotic arm, and Wheelock will assist from the station’s truss. Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson and Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Dan Tani will be operating the station’s robotic arm from the robotic work station inside the Destiny laboratory. Mission Specialist Paolo Nespoli will be the spacewalk coordinator.
+ View images from Nov. 1 Mission Status Briefing http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts120/news/msb_sts120_fd10.html
*Mission Information* + STS-120 Mission Overview http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts120/index.html + Harmony Node 2 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/behindscenes/harmony_payload.html + Space Shuttle Discovery http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/shuttleoperations/orbiters/discovery-info.html