Jul 22 2009
From The Space Library
Five hours into the third of five scheduled spacewalks, Mission Control instructed STS-127 crew members Christopher J. Cassidy and David A. Wolf to return to the inside of the ISS, after a canister for removing carbon dioxide from Cassidy’s suit apparently stopped functioning properly. Because of the curtailed spacewalk, the astronauts had to leave two of four new, uninstalled batteries outside the station. When Mission Control told them to stop work, the two astronauts were behind schedule because they had been unable to remove some stubborn bolts. They had removed three of the nine-year-old batteries, which NASA had installed in 2000, and had plugged in two new ones. The large nickel hydrogen batteries stored the power that the ISS solar wings had collected. NASA had designed the batteries to last six-and-a-half years and wanted to replace them before they stopped working. Mission Control planned to complete work on the batteries during one of the next two spacewalks.
Marcia Dunn for Associated Press, “Astronauts Cut Spacewalk Short Due To Suit Trouble,” 23 July 2009; Tariq Malik, “Spacewalkers Add New Batteries to Space Station,” Space.com, 24 July 2009, http://www.space.com/7051-spacewalkers-add-batteries-space-station.html (accessed 26 August 2011).
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