Ham-Astronauts Complete 6.5-Hour Spacewalk

NEWINGTON, CT, Apr 11, 2003--US astronauts Ken Bowersox, KD5JBP, and Don Pettit, KD5MDT, this week completed the second and final spacewalk of their International Space Station duty tour. Cosmonaut and Flight engineer Nikolai Budarin, RV3FB, assisted from inside the ISS during the "extra-vehicular activity" or EVA on April 8.

NASA said the two Expedition 6 crew members were taking advantage of the final days of a three-person presence on the ISS before a new, two-person crew takes over. The Expedition 7 crew of cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, and veteran NASA astronaut Ed Lu, KC5WKJ, is set to inhabit the ISS starting next month.

This is only a test: Expedition 6 Astronauts Ken Bowersox, KD5JPB (right), and Don Pettit, KD5MDT, demonstrate the ability of two crew members to safely get into the American "EVA mobility unit" spacesuits without the help from a third crew member. NASA says such ability is a prerequisite to sending smaller crews to the ISS while the space shuttle fleet remains grounded during the investigation of the Columbia accident. Once inside the bulky gear, the pair managed to extricate themselves successfully as well. [NASA Photo]

During the spacewalk, which ran just under 6-1/2 hours, NASA says that Bowersox, the Expedition 6 commander, and Pettit, the NASA ISS science officer, "continued the external outfitting of the station and rerouted power cables to two of the station's control moment gyros (CMGs)." The CMGs provide orientation control for the ISS from the US segment. One CMG failed almost a year ago, and the cable reconfiguration to the remaining CMGs will prevent both from being disabled in the unlikely event a power failure occurs.

NASA said the work included "a number of get-ahead tasks for future ISS assembly." The grounding of the shuttle fleet is expected to affect the ISS construction schedule. The EVA this week was the second for each American, who managed separate and joint tasks.

Among other work during their EVA, Bowersox and Pettit finally deployed--with some difficulty and the use of a hammer--a balky light stanchion on the S1 truss that failed to unfurl during their previous spacewalk in January. They installed a light on the stanchion to illuminate the truss during future EVAs.

Starry, starry night: Canopus, the second-brightest star in the sky, is visible in this photo by astronaut Don Pettit, the Expedition 6 NASA ISS science officer. Canopus is some 300 light years from Earth in the southern hemisphere constellation Carina and is a rare class "F" yellow-white super giant. Canopus is 65 times wider and 15,000 times more luminous than our sun. [NASA Photo]

With all of their scheduled tasks completed, Bowersox and Pettit had time left over to retrieve some tools for future spacewalks from external locations before returning to the ISS. Following the successful spacewalk, the Expedition 6 crew performed several cleanup activities aboard the ISS. Jobs included recharging water in the spacesuits used during the EVA as well as other post-spacewalk activities in the ISS Quest airlock.

NASA reports that Malenchenko and Lu completed final mission preparations before traveling to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from their training base in Star City, Russia. Once in Kazakhstan, they'll inspect the Soyuz TMA-2 vehicle that will carry them into space April 26 to begin a six-month ISS mission. It will mark the first time a primary ISS crew has been transported to the space station using the Russian transporter.

Russian flight controllers were scheduled to fire the engines on a Progress 10 cargo ship now docked to the ISS to raise the station's orbit by 2.6 kilometers (1.6 miles).

The crew's next Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group contact is scheduled for April 14 with Lounsberry Hollow Middle School in New Jersey. For more information, visit the ARISS Web site.

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