STS-123 MCC Status
Report #15
(18 March 2008) Astronauts Rick
Linnehan and Bob Behnken completed a 6 hour 53 minute spacewalk today,
finishing the assembly and installation of the International Space Station's
newest robot, Dextre.
Today's spacewalk was the third of five
planned for the STS-123 mission and was the 107th spacewalk dedicated to the
assembly of the station.
Linnehan and Behnken focused on installing
Dextre's tool holder assembly and a Camera Light Pan Tilt Assembly (CLPA),
which will serve as Dextre's eyes. The spacewalkers also prepared the Spacelab
Logistics Pallet, on which the robot was assembled, for its return to
Endeavour's cargo bay Tuesday evening.
The astronauts also installed
spare equipment for the station on an external platform on the Quest airlock,
including a yaw joint for the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, and two spare
direct current switching units.
The spacewalkers attempted to install
the MISSE 6 experiment onto the Columbus module, but were unable to properly
engage latching pins used to hold the experiment packages onto the hull of
Columbus. MISSE 6 is designed to expose experiments to the space environment
for six months and measure how materials and coatings are affected by the
extreme environment.
Tuesday night, the crew will again use the
station's robotic arm to grapple Dextre and move it to a power and data grapple
fixture (PDGF) on the Destiny laboratory where it will reside. The next
spacewalk by Behnken and Mike Foreman is scheduled for Thursday, when they will
practice shuttle tile repair techniques and replace a failed circuit breaker on
the station's truss.
Endeavour Commander Dom Gorie spent part of the day
examining minor condensation on a cooling line under the floorboards of the
shuttle's mid-deck. The condensation was noted after some noises were detected
in that area. Flight controllers say the condensation has no impact on shuttle
operations, but the cooling line may be inspected periodically during the
remainder of the mission.
The next STS-123 status report will be issued
after crew wake-up Tuesday afternoon or earlier if events
warrant.
(source: NASA)
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