SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
*STS-120 Astronauts to Go Spacewalking Today* 26 October 2007
The STS-120 and Expedition 16 crews are preparing for today’s spacewalk to install the Harmony module onto the International Space Station. STS-120 Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock are slated to begin their orbital stroll at 6:28 a.m. EDT.
The excursion is scheduled to last 6.5 hours. Mission Specialist Paolo Nespoli will be the spacewalk coordinator, assisting the spacewalkers with their tasks from inside the spacecraft. Mission Specialists Stephanie Wilson and Clay Anderson and Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Daniel Tani will be at the controls of the station’s Canadian-built robotic arm.
The spacewalkers’ first task will be the removal and stowage of the S-band Antenna Structural Assembly. Next, they will move on to the Harmony preparation work. They will secure a Payload and Data Grapple Fixture onto Harmony that could not be in place during launch, remove contamination covers and disconnect the power cables linking Harmony to Discovery.
The station robotic arm operators then will remove Harmony from the payload bay and begin moving it toward its position on Unity. Finally, the spacewalkers will prepare the P6 truss for its relocation.
*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