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Atlantis crew completes third and final spacewalk BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: September 15, 2006 Astronauts Joe Tanner and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper began repressurizing space station's Quest airlock today at 12:42 p.m. to officially close out a third and final space station assembly spacewalk. The spacewalk began at 6 a.m. for a duration of six hours and 42 minutes. Tanner and Piper logged six hours and 26 minutes during a spacewalk Tuesday, giving them a total of 13 hours and eight minutes, while Dan Burbank and Steve MacLean put in seven hours and 11 minutes during an excursion Wednesday. Total spacewalk time for Atlantis' mission was 20 hours and 19 minutes and Tanner, now a veteran of seven spacewalks, moved up to No. 4 on the world EVA list with a total of nearly 46-and-a-half hours. "OK, well I guess that's it for me," Tanner said just before re-entering the airlock to close out his final spacewalk. "Yep, the sun goes down on an era," Piper said. "I should say 'on a legend.'" "Ah, I don't think so," replied Tanner, veteran of a 1997 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and three other station spacewalks in 2000. A few minutes later, he thanked the spacewalk trainers at the Johnson Space Center for preparing the Atlantis crew for all three EVAs. Astronaut Pam Melroy in mission control credited him with "another legendary performance." Today's spacealk was the 72nd devoted to space station assembly and maintenance since construction began in December 1998. Forty-five Americans, 13 Russians, two Canadians, one Japanese astronaut and one French flier have now logged 438 hours and 36 minutes of station spacewalk time.
With launch restraints removed during today's spacewalk, flight controllers sent commands to unfold a 44-foot-long radiator panel on the international space station today that will help keep the electronics inside a new solar array module cool once it comes on line. Television shots from space showed the big radiator, made up of seven hinged panels, unfolding and stretching away from the P4 solar array as the station sailed 218 miles above Saudi Arabia. Dual coolant loops will help control temperatures in the array's integrated electronics assembly, which houses the gear needed to regulate power from the solar panels. The 1,600-pound radiator is 44 feet long, 12 feet wide and can dissipate up to 14 kilowatts of heat. Tanner and Piper, meanwhile, enjoyed the view from a safe distance away where they were working to upgrade the station's S-band communications gear. "That's a pretty above-average view I've got right now," Tanner said, looking across the station's main solar array truss and the nose of Atlantis at the blue-and-white Earth below. "That's the Suez Canal, the Holy Land... wow," Tanner marveled a few moments later. "Wow."
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VIDEO:
FIRST SOLAR WING DEPLOYED HALF-WAY 