Space Station Crew Prepares for Space Walk

The crew of Endeavour was awakened at 7:26 a.m. to begin a day that will see the installation of the Port One (P1) truss onto the International Space Station. The P1 is the third such truss to be installed on the station this year and is one of 11 truss segments that will make up the station’s final Integrated Truss Structure.

Beginning around 9:20 a.m., Endeavour Commander Jim Wetherbee will use the shuttle’s robotic arm to lift the P1 truss from the cargo bay, then hand it off to the station’s robotic arm. Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox and Expedition Five NASA ISS Science Officer Peggy Whitson will fly the station’s robotic arm. Bowersox and Whitson will position the P1 for installation around 1 p.m.

About 2:20 p.m., after remotely-operated bolts have secured the P1 truss to the station’s central Starboard Zero (S0) truss segment. Mission Specialists Michael Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington will exit the station’s Quest airlock to begin the first of the mission’s three spacewalks. Lopez-Alegria will start by making connections between the P1 and the S0 while Herrington releases launch restraints on the Crew and Equipment Translation Aid cart. Lopez-Alegria also will install Spool Positioning Devices onto the station. Both spacewalkers will then remove a drag link on the P1 that served as a launch restraint.

The final major task of the 6?-hour spacewalk is the installation by both spacewalkers of a Wireless video system External Transceiver Assembly (WETA) onto the Unity module. The WETA will be used to support helmet camera communications from future spacewalkers.

Endeavour Pilot Paul Lockhart will coordinate the spacewalk from the flight deck of the shuttle. During the spacewalk, the Expedition Five crew – Commander Valery Korzun, Whitson and Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev – will continue handover discussions with the Expedition Six crew – Bowersox, NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit and Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin.