Spacewalking

Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper hitching a ride to the Endeavour's payload bay carrying a nitrogen tank assembly. Credit: NASA-TV

Everything seems to be going quite well on STS-126. So far the inspections of the thermal protection system has turned up nothing to cause concern and that bit of loosened fabric I spoke of a couple posts ago is also nothing to worry about.

Today is kind of a special day, the day a couple crew members of Endeavour go outside the Shuttle/ISS. Astronauts Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve Bowen will conduct a 6.5 hour spacewalk, the first of four, will target the Solar Alpha Rotary Joints. The joints are what keep the solar arrays pointed to the sun in order to get all the solar/electrical goodness out of them. Oh the joints are fine but they do need to be lubricated every now and then and Piper and Bowen won’t be dealing with all of them today; they have other things to do too, mainly some needed maintenance things.

As exhilarating as a 6.5 hour spacewalk might be I can only imagine those people must be exhausted about bed time.

To get the latest head on over to NASA.

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