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Astronaut Chris Williams shows off a \u201cstrong man\u201d pose 260 miles above Earth during a break in work to repair the International Space Station\u2019s robot arm. Image: NASA<\/p>\nAstronaut Chris Williams shows off a \u201cstrong man\u201d pose 260 miles above Earth during a break in work to repair the International Space Station\u2019s robot arm. Image: NASA<\/p>\n
Two NASA astronauts floating outside the International Space Station carried out a bit of orbital surgery Tuesday, successfully replacing a broken 200-pound \u201cwrist\u201d joint near the end of the lab\u2019s 58-foot-long robot arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a good install, you guys. I know that was tough. Wonderful work,\u201d Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons called up from mission control toward the end of the seven-hour 20-minute excursion.<\/p>\n
On May 27, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston noticed one of the Canadian-built arm\u2019s seven joints was drawing more current than expected and not moving properly.<\/p>\n
After a detailed review of telemetry, NASA managers and experts with the Canadian Space Agency, which supplied the station arm, concluded the joint had failed and needed to be replaced with a spare, one of two mounted on an external stowage platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cSystems like Canadarm2 were designed from the beginning with replaceable components and were planned with maintenance in mind,\u201d said ISS operations and integration manager Bill Spetch. \u201cThis is no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
Floating in the Quest airlock, astronaut Jessica Meir, making her fifth spacewalk, and crewmate Chris Williams, making his second, switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:20 a.m. EDT, officially kicking off the year\u2019s third ISS spacewalk and the 280th overall.<\/p>\n
After setting up foot restraints near the stowage platform and positioning the spare joint for installation, Williams and Meir detached the arm\u2019s \u201chand,\u201d known as the latching end effector, or LEE, along with two other healthy joints.<\/p>\n
The 900-pound assembly was temporarily mounted on a nearby shelf, clearing the way for removal of joint No. 5, the 200-pound wrist joint that failed. The replacement joint was successfully installed four-and-a-half hours into the spacewalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll remove the failed joint 5, replace it with the spare joint and then once that\u2019s back on the arm, our last major task will be to get that LEE cluster that we temporarily stowed and put it back onto the robotic arm so that we have a fully assembled arm at the end of the spacewalk,\u201d said flight director Fiona Antkowiak.<\/p>\n
Five-and-a-half hours after beginning the spacewalk, Williams and Meir were able to re-attach the LEE cluster as planned. Shortly after, flight controllers powered up the arm and verified good electrical connections through the newly installed joint.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we did hear good confirmation that \u2026 Canadarm 2 has two good strings of power and data to the arm,\u201d said NASA commentator Sandra Jones. \u201cSo today\u2019s wrist surgery was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams and Mier, meanwhile, collected their tools and headed back to the airlock to close out the spacewalk.<\/p>\n
Williams also brought the failed joint back into the airlock so it can eventually be returned to Earth for repairs. Once that work is complete, the refurbished joint and one other will be relaunched to the space station for future use as needed.<\/p>\n
The robot arm is critical to normal station operations. It is used to capture Northrop Grumman\u2019s Cygnus cargo ships, pulling them in for berthing, while moving other components \u2014 and spacewalkers \u2014 from point to point during maintenance operations.<\/p>\n
NASA plans to retire the space station by the end of 2030, but Spetch said the agency will continue to maintain the arm throughout because it is vital to ISS operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a time where we say hey, we\u2019re just done repairing the arm,\u201d he said. \u201cOverall, the arm is critical for station operations and continued maintenance of it throughout to the end of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronaut Chris Williams shows off a \u201cstrong man\u201d pose 260 miles above Earth during a break in work…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-736584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}