Dec 12 2006
From The Space Library
Astronauts Robert L. Curbeam Jr. and A. Christer Fuglesang performed the first extravehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk, of Mission STS-116. During the 6.5-hour EVA, the two astronauts installed the girder-like P5 truss to the ISS’s Integrated Truss Structure. Fellow astronauts Joan E. Higginbotham and Sunita L. Williams assisted them from inside the ISS, using the station’s robotic arm (Canadarm2). The P5 truss would support a set of solar arrays, which NASA expected to attach during a Shuttle mission planned for 2007. The astronauts’ other major task during the spacewalk was the retraction of the solar arrays on the station’s P6 truss, so that the newer solar arrays on the P4 truss could begin tracking the motion of the Sun. Although NASA had designed the P6’s arrays to fold up like an accordion, mechanical problems prevented crew members from fully retracting the device. Crew members of Space Shuttle Atlantis had installed the newer solar arrays during Mission STS-115 in August 2006.
NASA, “STS-116 Delivers Permanent Power”; NASA, “Mission Archives: STS-115,” http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-115.html (accessed 8 June 2010); Michael Cabbage, “Walk Add 2 Tons to Space Station; Truss Addition Paves Way for Solar Upgrade,” Orlando Sentinel (FL), 13 December 2006.
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