The return of shuttle Atlantis, which will bring back Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams home after her six-month space sojourn has been delayed by two days to help astronauts fix a problem on the body of the spacecraft.
The decision to add a fourth space walk to the Atlantis crew’s schedule to fix the thermal blanket on the shuttle’s exterior will mean a mission of 13 days in space rather than the originally planned 11 days, said John Shannon, head of the mission management team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
On Tuesday, space station flight controllers began the delicate task of unfurling the outpost’s new solar power wings, which two spacewalking astronauts installed during the first major task of shuttle Atlantis’ 13-day flight.
Stretching the twin panels to their full 73.15-metre length was expected to take most of the day. The wings had been folded for more than six years and mission managers worried they might stick together as they unfurl.
Construction of the International Space Station had been on hold for 3-1/2 years while NASA recovered from the 2003 destruction of the space shuttle Columbia.
NASA also would like to fly two station resupply missions and make a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope before the shuttles are mothballed.
The additional power provided by the new solar panels will pave the way for NASA to install laboratory modules built by the European Space Agency and Japan this year and in 2008.
The Atlantis astronauts, who were asleep when ground controllers sent the commands to begin deploying the panels, were expected the take over the job of extending the wings and adjusting tension reels if the folds stick.
Atlantis astronauts Reilly and John “Danny’’ Olivas installed the beam holdin the solar wings during a 6-hour, 15-minute spacewalk on Monday. After the wings are extended, astronauts Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson will undertake the mission’s second spacewalk on Wednesday to set up a rotary joint so they can track the sun.