Astronauts Michael Good and Garrett Reisman are suiting up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk today to finish replacing the International Space Station's oldest set of solar array batteries. They also plan to install an ammonia coolant jumper between two power truss segments, retrieve a robot arm grapple fixture and repair insulation on a Canadian robot arm extension.

Credit: NASA

The spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 6:45 a.m. EDT when Reisman and Good, floating in the station's Quest airlock module, switch their spacesuits to battery power.

This will be the 146th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the 10th so far this year and the third and final excursion planned by the Atlantis astronauts. Good, call sign EV-1, will be making the fourth spacewalk of his career, while Reisman, EV-2, will be making his third.

One of the major objectives of Atlantis' mission was the replacement of six aging batteries in the P6 solar array segment on the far left end of the station's power truss. Four batteries were replaced by Good and Stephen Bowen during a spacewalk Wednesday, one more than called for in the flight plan.

"Because the crew's been so good this mission in getting ahead, we did add a couple of things to (Friday's) EVA," said space station Flight Director Scott Stover. "The first thing they do when they go out, they're going to be installing a jumper that runs between the P4 and P5 truss segments on the space station. ... It's an ammonia jumper, although it's going to be filled with nitrogen so we don't have to worry about any ammonia getting on the suits or anything like that."

The P5 truss segment acts as a spacer between the P4 and P6 solar arrays. The jumper will help complete a path from an inboard ammonia reservoir in the P3 segment to the outboard solar arrays.

"The P6 and the P4 modules both have ammonia cooling systems on there, but the ammonia tanks for the external thermal control system are inside the solar alpha rotary joint," Stover said. "If one of those outboard, P4 or P6, modules develop a leak or need to be refilled with ammonia, we need this jumper to help us with those refill operations. So that's the first thing they're going to do, install a jumper that in the future would be used for refill operations.

"The second thing they're going to do is (go) back to battery ops. They still have two new batteries to install and two old batteries to put onto the ICC (integrated cargo carrier). Plus, that one battery they left temp stowed needs to go back on the ICC. So those activities will finish up all the battery ops."

After that, Good and Reisman will make their way to the base of the station's robot arm where a Canadian hand-like extension known as DEXTRE is mounted. Engineers earlier spotted an insulation blanket that was not in the proper configuration and the astronauts will take a moment to fix that before moving to the shuttle's cargo bay.

"The final scheduled activity is to go down to the payload bay of Atlantis and get what we call a power and data grapple fixture, which is the structure the station arm connects to," Stover said. "It's an extra one we have brought up on Atlantis for planned install on a later EVA on the (Russian) Zarya module. That EVA is currently scheduled for the summer."

A final get-ahead task will be carried out if time is available, replacing tools in external tool boxes that were carried inside the station by previous spacewalkers.

Along with replacing the batteries in the P6 solar array segment, a second major objective of Atlantis' mission was installing a new Russian module known as Rassvet, or mini-research module No. 1. The new compartment was attached to the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module Tuesday and opened up on Thursday.

Entering the module, Expedition 23 commander Oleg Kotov reported seeing what appeared to be metal flakes, or shavings, floating in the air, debris presumably shaken loose during launch. As always when opening a new module, Kotov was wearing goggles and a dust mask as a safety precaution.

"One thing that we did find were some metal flakes, or shavings, that were unexpected," Stover said. "In the one-G environment when it was on the ground you can imagine they hide in the nooks and crannies of the module itself. Now in zero G, they're floating around.

"When the crew entered, we were prepared for it, we made sure they were wearing the protective gear, goggles and dust mask," he said. "They reported seeing the metal flakes, so we had them make sure the (air) scrubbers were running."

The module's hatch was closed overnight and "hopefully the scrubbers will collect all of that debris," Stover said. "When we do go back in, we'll again have them wear the protective equipment just in case there's something floating around in the air."

Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time; includes revision G of the NASA television schedule):

EDT........DD...HH...MM...EVENT

05/21
01:50 AM...06...11...30...STS/ISS crew wakeup
03:00 AM...06...12...40...EVA-3: 14.7 psi repress/hygiene break
03:15 AM...06...12...55...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi
03:40 AM...06...13...20...EVA-3: EVA prep
03:50 AM...06...13...30...ISS daily planning conference
05:10 AM...06...14...50...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge
05:25 AM...06...15...05...EVA-3: Spacesuit prebreathe
06:05 AM...06...15...45...SSRMS cargo pallet move to EVA worksite
06:15 AM...06...15...55...EVA-3: Crew lock depressurization
06:45 AM...06...16...25...EVA-3: Spacesuits to battery power
06:50 AM...06...16...30...EVA-3: Airlock egress/setup
07:05 AM...06...16...45...EVA-3: Setup
07:15 AM...06...16...55...EVA-3: Ammonia jumper install
07:30 AM...06...17...10...EVA-3: P6 battery 5 R&R
08:00 AM...06...17...40...EVA-3: P6 battery E/6 R&R
09:05 AM...06...18...45...EVA-3: P6 battery F R&R
09:40 AM...06...19...20...EVA-3: Install battery on pallet
10:15 AM...06...19...55...EVA-3: P6 cleanup
11:15 AM...06...20...55...EVA-3: Retrieve grapple fixture from cargo bay
11:35 AM...06...21...15...SSRMS moves cargo pallet to solar array truss
12:15 PM...06...21...55...EVA-3: Get aheads
12:20 PM...06...22...00...SSRMS releases cargo pallet
12:40 PM...06...22...20...EVA-3: Cleanup and ingress
01:15 PM...06...22...55...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization
01:25 PM...06...23...05...Spacesuit servicing
02:25 PM...07...05...00...ISS daily planning conference
03:15 PM...07...55...00...EVA tagup
04:00 PM...07...01...40...Mission status briefing on NTV
04:50 PM...07...02...30...ISS crew sleep begins
05:00 PM...07...02...40...SRB launch video
05:20 PM...07...03...00...STS crew sleep begins
06:00 PM...07...03...40...Daily highlights reel
09:00 PM...07...06...40...HD crew highlights

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HIGH DEFINITION TV DAY 5: LOOKING OUT WINDOW AT EARTH PLAY
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VIDEO: TUESDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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VIDEO: RASSVET CAPTURED AND SECURED TO ZARYA MODULE! PLAY
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VIDEO: SWINGING RASSVET FROM ATLANTIS TO STATION PLAY
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VIDEO: BOLTING BOOM ATOP STATION'S Z1 TRUSS PLAY
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VIDEO: CARRIER ATTACHED TO STATION'S RAILCAR PLAY
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VIDEO: PAYLOADS HEAD FOR LAUNCH PAD PLAY | HI-DEF
VIDEO: RASSVET PLACED INTO THE TRANSPORTER PLAY | HI-DEF
VIDEO: PALLET LOADED WITH MISSION'S CARGO PLAY | HI-DEF
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VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS VISIT THEIR SPACECRAFT PLAY | HI-DEF
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