Spacewalking electricians wire up space station

HOUSTON, Dec 19: A veteran spacewalker and his rookie partner rewired the International Space Station's power system on Saturday, completing a dicey task essential for the addition of European and Japanese laboratories to the outpost beginning next year.

''It's great to have some good on-orbit electricians working for us,'' astronaut Stephen Robinson in Mission Control told the shuttle Discovery crew after the newly wired circuits were turned on for the first time.

The spacewalk, which began at 2:25 p.m. EST (0055 IST) was to be the third and final outing of space shuttle Discovery's 12-day flight.

''Bye-bye Bob,'' sang out first-time spacewalker Suni Williams as she watched veteran Robert Curbeam float through the airlock into open space. She followed a few minutes later.

''Welcome to the club, Suni,'' Curbeam said.

NASA managers were toying with the idea of a fourth spacewalk to fix a jammed solar wing panel that had to be folded up to make room for the station's new power-generating panels to rotate.

After dozens of attempts to automatically fold up the 110-foot long panel, flight directors gave up with the wing still about half-way out. The panel must be completely folded into a storage box so it can be relocated to another part of the station next year.

Managers have asked Curbeam, on his sixth spacewalk, and Williams to look at the panel's guide wires if they can finish their primary jobs early. They may also push gently on the panel's metal storage box to try to clear the jam.

WAIT UNTIL MARCH?

If that fails, NASA could send Discovery's spacewalkers on a fourth outing yesterday to manually retract the solar wing. Managers were also considering either having the space station crew tackle the job during a spacewalk after Discovery departs, or waiting for the next shuttle crew, due to arrive in March, to fix the problem.

In preparation for the power upgrade, flight controllers turned off half the space station's electricity to make sure the spacewalkers would not handle any live lines as they disconnect and reattach cables to hook up the new power grid.

The work mirrors what Curbeam and astronaut Christer Fuglesang completed on their second spacewalk on Thursday.

Curbeam and Williams also assembled debris shields designed to protect the space station's Russian service module, the crew's primary living quarters.

The shields, intend to lessen the impact of any micrometeoroid impacts, will be installed during a spacewalk next summer.

If NASA dispatches Discovery's astronauts on a fourth spacewalk, the work could force the astronauts to skip a final inspection of the shuttle's heat shield before Discovery plunges through the atmosphere prior to landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday December 21.

NASA has been meticulous about scouting for damage on the shuttle's protective heat shields since losing Columbia to a debris strike in 2003.

Managers have no concerns that Discovery's heat shield sustained Columbia-like damage during launch, but they like to make a final check before the shuttle leaves orbit to make sure the ship hasn't been hit by a micrometeoroids or pieces of space debris.

The shuttle does not have enough supplies to stay in space beyond Saturday December 23 and NASA reserves two days for weather-related landing delays.

REUTERS