Associated Press
A pair of space station astronauts ventured out on a space walk Tuesday to inspect defective solar-wing mechanisms that are hobbling power generation at the orbiting complex.
Meanwhile some 200 miles (320 kilometers) below, NASA was recreating fuel gauge problems that grounded the shuttle Atlantis earlier this month.
(Related story: Shuttle Launch Postponed Again Over Fuel Gauge [December 7, 2007])
Engineers started filling the spaceship's external tank with liquid hydrogen fuel at daybreak, in a test at the launch pad to pinpoint the nagging trouble. One of the four fuel gauges promptly failed and two others were not working consistently.
The problem could be anywhere in the 100 feet (30 meters) of circuitry between the shuttle and tank or in the fuel gauges.
Atlantis's astronauts were supposed to examine the clogged rotary joint at the international space station. But with the shuttle mission delayed until January, NASA moved up the joint inspection and added another chore to the space walk after a second component in the space station's power system failed a week and a half ago.
(Related photos: Space Shuttle Atlantis)
Hundredth Walk
Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani made history as they floated outside well before dawn: The excursion marked the hundredth space walk at the International Space Station.
Flight controllers called it a fact-finding mission.
The astronauts quickly headed to a mechanism that is supposed to tilt the solar wings on the right side of the space station toward the sun. The component experienced circuit breaker trips on December 8, possibly after being hit by a piece of space junk or micrometeorite.
(Related photo: Damage to a Space Station Solar Panel in December)
|
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
|
