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Astronauts to make third spacewalk today BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: August 15, 2007 Shuttle flier Rick Mastracchio and station astronaut Clay Anderson are gearing up for a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk today to upgrade the international space station's S-band communications system and make final preparations for the relocation of a stowed solar array during the next shuttle assembly mission in October. At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, meanwhile, engineers are continuing tests to determine whether a small gouge in Endeavour's heat shield needs to be repaired before re-entry. The testing is not expected to be complete until late today and NASA's Mission Management Team may opt to defer a decision one way or the other until Thursday. Today's spacewalk, the third of the Endeavour mission, the 14th so far this year and the 91st since station assembly began in 1998, is scheduled to get underway at 11:01 a.m. when the astronauts, floating in the station's Quest airlock module, switch their spacesuits to internal battery power. This will be Mastracchio's third spacewalk and Anderson's second. Preparations have gone smoothly and as of 9 a.m., the spacewalkers were running about 25 minutes ahead of schedule. The first item on the agenda is to move the S-band antenna sub-assembly, or SASA, from the P6, or port 6, solar array truss segment down to the P1 segment. P6, located at the top of the Z1 truss extending up from the central Unity module, provided the station's power during initial assembly. The station's power now is provided by solar arrays on each end of a long truss that runs at right angles to the station's pressurized modules. In October, astronauts will use the station's robot arm to move P6 from its perch atop Z1 to its permanent location on the far left end of the solar array truss. Its stowed arrays then will be re-extended. In preparation for that move, shuttle astornauts stowed the P6 solar panels during assembly flights in December and June. During the Endeavour crew's first spacewalk last Saturday, a large ammonia cooling radiator was folded and locked in place. Today, Mastracchio and Anderson, assisted by shuttle pilot Charles Hobaugh, operating the station's robot arm, will move the SASA antenna gear from P6 to the P1 truss segment. They then plan to install a new S-band transponder and signal processor that will improve voice communications to and from the station. With that work complete, the spacewalkers and Hobaugh will move two crew and equipment translation aid - CETA - carts from one side of the station arm's mobile transporter to the other. The CETA carts are coupled to the transporter, which moves along rails on the front face of the main solar array truss to position the robot arm at various work sites. The carts currently are on the port, or left, side of the transporter. They need to be on the opposite side so the transporter can reach the far left work site on the truss for the P6 relocation work planned for October. Anderson then plans to retrieve a transponder from the P6 array while Mastracchio retrieves two space exposure experiment packages for return to Earth. "We're going to move the SASA antenna off of P6," Mastracchio said in a NASA interview. "Again, P6 is going to eventually be moved from the zenith part of station to the port side. So, we have to kind of clean up P6. And part of it is to move this large antenna off of P6 and install it on P1. While I'm doing that, Clay Anderson ... will be installing two electronics boxes to support that antenna. That will give the space station its second set of antennas, I should say, communication antenna capability. "The second part of that EVA is we've got two large CETA carts that run along the rail, the tracks on the truss. We'll be moving those CETA carts from the one side to the other side in preparation for a future mission. And then, there's some other clean-up work after that." Revision L of the NASA television schedule is posted on the CBS News STS-118 Quick-Look page. Here is an updated timeline of today's activity (in EDT and mission elapsed time): DATE/EDT...DD...HH...MM...EVENT 08/15/07 06:07 AM...06...11...30...STS/ISS crew wakeup 06:47 AM...06...12...10...EVA-3: Airlock repress to 14.7 psi 07:07 AM...06...12...30...EVA-3: Hygiene break 07:27 AM...06...12...50...EVA-3: Airlock depress to 10.2 psi 07:57 AM...06...13...20...EVA-3; Campout EVA prep 09:27 AM...06...14...50...EVA-3: Spacesuit purge 09:42 AM...06...15...05...EVA-3: Spacesuit pre-breathe 10:32 AM...06...15...55...EVA-3: Airlock depressurization 11:07 AM...06...16...30...EVA-3: Airlock egress 11:07 AM...06...16...30...Station arm (SSRMS) maneuvers for SASA support 11:22 AM...06...16...45...EVA-3: Setup 11:42 AM...06...17...05...Russian segment computer work resumes 12:02 PM...06...17...25...EVA-3: EV1: P6 SASA relocation 12:02 PM...06...17...25...SSRMS SASA relocation 12:02 PM...06...17...25...EVA-3: EV3: P1 signal processor and transponder installation 12:37 PM...06...18...00...Spacehab debris shields inspection 01:32 PM...06...18...55...SSRMS maneuvers for CETA cart relocation 01:57 PM...06...19...20...EVA-3: CETA 1 moved to starboard side of transporter 02:42 PM...06...20...05...Crew meals begin 02:57 PM...06...20...20...EVA-3: CETA 2 moved to starboard side of transporter 03:57 PM...06...21...20...EVA-3: EV1: SASA gimbal locks prepared 03:57 PM...06...21...20...EVA-3: EV3: P6 transponder retrieval 04:27 PM...06...21...50...EVA-3: EV1: MISSE 3 and 4 removal 04:57 PM...06...22...20...EVA-3: Payload bay cleanup 05:12 PM...06...22...35...EVA-3: Airlock ingress 05:32 PM...06...22...55...EVA-3: Airlock repressurization 05:57 PM...06...23...20...MISSE-3 transfer to shuttle 06:17 PM...06...23...40...MISSE-4 transfer to shuttle 07:00 PM...07...00...24...Mission status briefing on NASA TV 07:12 PM...07...00...35...Logistics transfer tagup 09:07 PM...07...02...30...ISS crew sleep begins 09:37 PM...07...03...00...STS crew sleep begins 10:00 PM...07...03...24...Daily video highlights reel on NASA TV
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