Astronauts go for a Long Walk

« It’s a Convertible?! | Home | Eyeglasses 101 »

By Linda | February 15, 2008

Shuttle Atlantis Astronauts Rex Walheim and Stanley Love resumed work today outside the International Space Station. It is anticipated that this, the last of three space walks completed by the pair on their eleven-day mission, will last about six and a half hours.

Atlantis docked with the International Space Station on February 9th, becoming the first shuttle to dock to the pressurized mating adaptor attached to the Harmony Node 2 module.

During today’s space walk, Walheim and Love will be installing a European solar observatory and a materials science experiment on the outside of the Columbus (the bus sized laboratory module of the ISS) as well as retrieving an old gyroscope. Time permitting, they will also inspect a chip on a handrail which may have been caused by a micrometeoroid. That could be where spacewalkers have torn their gloves during recent outings.

Atlantis is scheduled to undock from the space station on Monday and land in Florida on Wednesday.