Spaceflight Now





Depleted ammonia tank moved to shuttle's cargo bay
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: April 13, 2010


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Four hours into a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Clay Anderson have connected feed lines to a new ammonia coolant tank on the International Space Station; retrieved a set of no-longer-needed debris shields; and moved a depleted coolant tank to the shuttle Discovery's cargo bay for return to Earth.

"We have a good ammonia tank in Discovery. Great work, guys," spacewalk coordinator Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger radioed at 6:26 a.m. as the old tank was bolted down in the shuttle's cargo bay.

But that was before Mastracchio attempted to tighten bolt No. 1, running into problems getting the attachment mechanism to line up properly. As a result, the bolt, one of four needed to secure the tank to its carrier plate, would not drive all the way in at the approved torque settings of Mastracchio's power tool.

"And Discovery for EVA, for Rick, I'm wondering if it's possible to get a wrist mirror view of what exactly is causing that spherical bearing to hang up?" asked Stan Love in mission control.

"I think it's a misalignment," Mastracchio said. "I don't think there's anything in the way, I think it's a misalignment. I can back the bolt out and rotate the clevis and take another look."

"Houston copies all," Love said. "We're talking."

A few minutes later, Love told the spacewalkers to remove bolt No. 3 in a bid to get enough play in the system to properly align bolt No. 1. After a bit of a struggle, Mastracchio finally was able to drive bolt No. 1 into place.

Anderson then attempted to re-tighten bolt No. 3 but he was unable to get the required number of turns at the approved torque settings. Using a torque multiplier, however, he was able to apply enough force to drive the bolt home.

"Now I can finally say good job! We have the ammonia tank in the payload bay," said Metcalf-Lindenburger. "Nice job, you guys."

Flight controllers, meanwhile, ran into problems with an apparently stuck valve in the new ammonia tank assembly. Nitrogen gas is used to push ammonia through the cooling system's plumbing but the valve problem held up that process, prompting troubleshooting on the ground.

Installing the new 1,700-pound ammonia tank and moving the depleted tank from the International Space Station to Discovery were the major objectives of the crew's three spacewalks. Trouble with the bolt mechanisms caused problems in the crew's second spacewalk when alignment issues with the new tank took and hour and a half to resolve.

Today's spacewalk began about an hour ahead of schedule at 2:14 a.m. EDT to officially kick off the Discovery crew's final planned EVA.

"It's a beautiful day to go EVA," Metcalf-Lindenburger called from the shuttle's flight deck.

The early portion of the spacewalk was devoted to connecting fluid lines to a new ammonia coolant tank that was installed on the space station Sunday.

The astronauts also moved no-longer-needed debris shields into the station's airlock.

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