Whitson and Tani found no signs of impact.
The spacewalkers then moved over to the bigger solar rotary joint, which is supposed to automatically revolve 360 degrees to keep the solar wings pointed toward the sun. The joint—also on the right side of the space station—has been used sparingly in the past three months because of vibrations and electrical current spikes.
During a space walk in October, Tani found steel grit inside the ten-foot-diameter (three-meter-diameter) joint. Even though he collected samples of the shavings, which were returned to Earth on the last shuttle flight, engineers still do not know what is grinding inside.
Whitson and Tani looked deeper into the joint Tuesday, taking off more covers and using a dentist-style mirror on a rod to peek inside. They collected more samples, using tape to dab the grit. They were asked to remove a set of suspect bearings, but no repairs were planned during the excursion.
Tani said the magnetized grit looked like marching ants as the gears moved. "It's hilarious," he called down. "It's like it's animated, like they're alive."
A Little Fun
Despite the seriousness of the job, the spacewalkers enjoyed some laughs with Mission Control. One flight controller, a man, wanted to know from Whitson "if this beats cooking and sewing."
"Tell him I'm going to take care of him when I get back—maybe not the way he wants," replied Whitson, the space station's first female skipper.
Three hours later, she became the new female spacewalking champion—"the queen," according to Mission Control—racking up more time in the vacuum than any other woman.
The unrelated predicaments are curtailing power generation at the space station and could delay future shuttle visits.
Atlantis's trip to deliver the European lab, Columbus, has been delayed until January 10, a date that hinges on the results of Tuesday's fueling test. The Japanese lab, Kibo—Japanese for "Hope"—is supposed to follow on multiple shuttle flights.
NASA has been struggling with sporadic fuel gauge problems for two years and wants to resolve them once and for all. The gauges are part of a backup safety system; they prevent the shuttle's main engines from running on an empty tank, which could be catastrophic.
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