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Spacewalking duo to wrap up station coolant tank swap BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: April 12, 2010 
Astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson are set for a third and final spacewalk Tuesday to complete the installation of a new ammonia coolant tank aboard the International Space Station. The astronauts also will mount a depleted tank in the shuttle Discovery's cargo bay for return to Earth and retrieve no-longer-needed debris shields.
This will be the 143rd spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year and the third of three planned by Discovery's crew. Overall, it is the sixth spacewalk for both Mastracchio and Anderson. For identification, Mastracchio, call sign EV-1, will be wearing a suit with red stripes around the legs. Anderson, EV-2, will be wearing an unmarked spacesuit. The astronauts ran into problems during a spacewalk Sunday to mount a new ammonia tank on the space station. Getting a sticky bolt to engage took longer than expected and as a result, Anderson and Mastracchio were forced to defer hooking the tank up to the station's ammonia lines and retrieving space debris impact shields mounted on a storage deck. "We've got two roll-over tasks that were originally planned as part of EVA-2 that are going to be added to the front end of EVA-3," said shuttle Flight Director Mike Sarafin. "Specifically, the ammonia tank quick-disconnect hook-up that we'll perform at the very beginning of the EVA." The astronauts could have made those connections at the end of their second spacewalk but there would not have been enough time to decontaminate their suits in the event of even a small ammonia leak. "So they'll pick up the fluid QD hook ups at the very beginning of this third spacewalk and that'll hook up the brand new ammonia tank to the International Space Station," Sarafin said. "Following that, they'll go get the orbital debris shields off of the external stowage platform No. 2 and temporarily stow those in the airlock. After they do that, they'll go on and essentially proceed with the remainder of EVA-3, in large part what was planned pre-flight." After stowing a grapple fixture used to help move the new ammonia tank Mastracchio and Anderson will "get the old ammonia tank that's temporarily stowed on the outside of the (station) and return that to the shuttle's payload bay for return to Earth," Sarafin said. Astronauts Stephanie Wilson and James Dutton, operating the station's robot arm from inside the Destiny module, will move the old ammonia tank to the back of Discovery's cargo bay where Mastracchio and Anderson will be waiting to bolt it in place on the same cargo carrier used by new coolant tank during launch. After stowing a few tools, Anderson will retrieve an experiment carrier platform from the European Space Agency's Columbus lab module and Mastracchio will perform get-ahead preps for a spare S-band antenna assembly that will be installed on the station's upper Z1 truss during an upcoming shuttle mission. Finally, Mastracchio will double-check the mounting of a radiator servicing fixture that was installed during the second spacewalk. "We noticed it was wobbling a little bit," Sarafin said. "We're not sure if we actually torqued it down a little bit too fast because of the type of bolt that that uses or if they didn't tighten it down enough. So they're going to go out and troubleshoot that and make sure there's a good structural connection. That'll essentially wrap up our third and final spacewalk of the flight." Because of the additional work added to the EVA-3 timeline, the astronauts will defer two other planned tasks to service an external camera and a hand-like attachment for the station's robot arm. Both tasks will be added to future spacewalks. Inside the space station, meanwhile, the astronauts are pressing ahead with work to move supplies and equipment from the Leonardo cargo module into the lab complex. Russian engineers, meanwhile, are troubleshooting problems with the Elektron oxygen generator in the Russian segment of the station. Space station Flight Director Ed Van Cise said the problem was not a pressing issue and that the station has plenty of supplies in the near term while the Elektron issue is resolved. In a bit of good news, replacement of a component in the station's U.S water recycling system appears to have resolved a different problem and Van Cise said the hardware is now processing water normally. "That replacement went very well," he said. "Last night, we started our first processing cycle (and) I'm happy to report the water processing system is completely functioning, everything is working very well. So we have fresh recycled drinking water for the crew, water to provide to the oxygen generator should we ever need it and we're in very good shape." Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision I of the NASA television schedule; best viewed with fixed-width font): EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT 10:21 PM...07...16...00...STS/ISS crew wakeup 10:56 PM...07...16...35...EVA-3: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break 11:46 PM...07...17...25...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 04/13 12:46 AM...07...18...25...MPLM transfers resume 01:36 AM...07...19...15...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge 01:51 AM...07...19...30...EVA-3: Spacesuit prebreathe 02:41 AM...07...20...20...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization 03:11 AM...07...20...50...EVA-3: Spacesuits to battery power 03:16 AM...07...20...55...EVA-3: Airlock egress/setup 03:26 AM...07...21...05...EVA-3/EV-1: Ammonia tank (ATA) connections 03:26 AM...07...21...05...EVA-3/EV-2: Debris (MMOD) shield retrieval 03:56 AM...07...21...35...EVA-3/EV-1: MMOD shield retrieval 04:11 AM...07...21...50...EVA-3: Adjustable grapple fixture stow 04:41 AM...07...22...20...EVA-3: Payload bay setup 05:11 AM...07...22...50...EVA-3: ATA install on cargo carrier 05:56 AM...07...23...35...EVA-3EV-1: Grapple bar removal 05:56 AM...07...23...35...EVA-3/EV-2: Station arm (SSRMS) setup 06:26 AM...08...05...00...EVA-3/EV-2: LWAPA experiment platform retrieval 06:56 AM...08...35...00...EVA-3/EV-1: LWAPA install 07:26 AM...08...01...05...EVA-3/EV-1: Z1 S-band antenna preps 07:26 AM...08...01...05...EVA-3/EV-2: SSRMS cleanup 08:11 AM...08...01...50...EVA-3/EV-1: S1 radiator grapple fixture adjust 08:26 AM...08...02...05...EVA-3/EV-2: Get aheads 09:11 AM...08...02...50...EVA-3: Cleanup and ingress 09:41 AM...08...03...20...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization 09:56 AM...08...03...35...Spacesuit servicing 11:30 AM...08...05...09...Mission status briefing on NTV 12:01 PM...08...05...40...ISS daily planning conference 02:51 PM...08...08...30...ISS crew sleep begins 03:21 PM...08...09...00...STS crew sleep begins 04:00 PM...08...09...39...Daily video highlights reel on NTV 07:45 PM...08...13...24...Flight director's update 11:21 PM...08...17...00...Crew wakeup
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