Second space walk underway
Atlantis crew member undertakes second spacewalk
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Wednesday, 13, Sep 2006 01:59
Astronauts from the Atlantis STS-115 mission are undertaking a second spacewalk to prepare the newly-installed solar equipment for operation.
Yesterday's first spacewalk installed the P3/P4 truss and its solar arrays to the International Space Station.
The work was deemed a success, although there was a brief moment of panic from astronaut Joe Tanner after he dropped a bolt which floated off into space.
"I just hope that bolt is on its way to Mother Earth right now and not on its way [back to the station]", he said. However lead space flight director John McCullough said that it was "pretty trivial" as the bolt eventually floated off harmlessly.
Beginning at 5:05 EDT (10:05 BST), today's spacewalkers Dan Burbank and Steve MacLean are releasing and removing launch restraints from the solar alpha rotary joint, which will allow the arrays to track the sun, eventually doubling the power the space station is able to generate.
A total of three spacewalks will be carried out during the mission, which is the first to add a space station component to the orbiting outpost in four years.