KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL - Spacewalking astronauts successfully removed a depleted ammonia tank from the space station's external truss and retrieved two experiment packages from the outside of the European Columbus module today during the first spacewalk of STS-128. Nicole Stott and Danny Olivas conducted the first of three planned spacewalks for the mission.
COMPLETE STS-128 MISSION STORY AND VIDEO ARCHIVE PHOTO GALLERIES VISIT OUR ONLINE STORE FOR SPACE COLLECTIBLES FREE VIDEOS: WATCH VIDEO: FLIGHT DAY FOUR HIGHLIGHTS WATCH VIDEO: ISS FLIGHT DIRECTOR UPDATE WATCH VIDEO: MISSION STATUS BRIEFING ALL-ACCESS SUBSCRIBERS: DOWNLOAD VIDEO: CREW CHOICE VIDEO DOWNLINK DOWNLOAD HI-DEF VIDEO: HD FLIGHT DAY FOUR HIGHLIGHTS Today's EVA began at 5:49 p.m. EDT when Stott and Olivas, preparing to exit the Quest airlock, switched their spcaesuits to battery power. The first task of the spacewalk was the removal of a spent 1,300-pound ammonia tank on the stations P1 port (left) side truss segment. The ammonia is used by the space station's cooling system radiators. The two spacewalkers manually unbolted the tank and held it in place while shuttle pilot Kevin Ford slowly moved the station's robotic arm into position and grappled the tank. The tank will remain in the grip of the SSRMS until the second spacewalk when a replacement tank is moved from Discovery's payload bay and installed on the truss and the depleted tank mounted in the empty space on Discovery. The only hitch today came shortly after the ammonia tank was removed as Stott and Olivas were preparing for the next EVA task. A strong electrical storm passed over the ground station in Guam, which disrupted communications through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System for about a half-hour. When communications were restored, the astronauts resumed their work, moving over to the Columbus research module to retrieve U.S. and European exposed science experiments. Today's EVA was the 131st spacewalk devoted to space station assembly and maintenance, conducted from the shuttle's airlock as well as Quest and the airlock on the Russian segment. Total EVA time now stands at 817 hours and 11 minutes. (The Spacearium / Space Media Corporation)
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