STS-105 Status Report #17 – 18 Aug 2001 – 4:00 PM CDT

Astronauts Dan

Barry and Pat Forrester successfully strung two 45-foot heater cables

and installed handrails down both sides of the Destiny laboratory of

the International Space Station today during a 5 hour, 29 minute spacewalk,

setting the stage for the delivery of a large truss structure to the

complex next year.

The cables would

provide backup power to the S0 truss, if needed, in the unlikely event

it could not be installed in a timely fashion on the station next spring

as the centerpiece for a 300-foot girder, which will serve as the backbone

for the orbital outposts external experiments, solar arrays and the

future mobile base for the Canadian-built station robotic arm.

Barry and Forrester

began their spacewalk at 8:42 a.m. Central time, and ended their final

excursion outside Discovery at 2:11 p.m., completing the 26th spacewalk

devoted to the assembly of the International Space Station, 24 of which

were staged from the Shuttle, and the 68th spacewalk in Shuttle program

history.

Other spacewalk

statistics following today’s activity include:

— Total spacewalk

time in Shuttle program history: 431 hours, 39 minutes. — Total spacewalk

time to assemble the ISS: 167 hours, 24 minutes. — Total Shuttle spacewalk

time for ISS assembly: 163 hours, 3 minutes. — Total spacewalk time

for the two EVAs on STS-105: 11 hours, 45 minutes.

While the spacewalk

was being conducted, Expedition Three Commander Frank Culbertson and

his crewmates, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin, continued loading

the Leonardo cargo module on the station, which will be detached from

the ISS Unity module Sunday and returned to Discovery’s payload bay

for the trip back home.

The astronauts

and cosmonauts will begin an eight-hour sleep period at about 8 tonight

Central time and will be awakened at 4:10 a.m. Sunday to begin the 10th

day of this mission.

The two spacecraft

are in excellent health orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude

of 250 statute miles. The next mission status report will be issued

at about 6 a.m. Sunday, or earlier if mission events warrant.