Astronauts Installing Live-in Compartment

HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery and the international space station geared up today for the first spacewalk of their joint mission and the robotic installation of a new live- in compartment, called Harmony.

Spacewalkers Scott Parazynski and Douglas Wheelock put on their spacesuits and were preparing to help astronauts inside the station use a robotic arm to transfer Harmony from Discovery’s payload bay to its position on the orbiting lab.

The Italian-made module is about the size of a school bus, weighing nearly 16 tons. It will serve as the docking port for European and Japanese laboratories that will be delivered on the next three shuttle flights.

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli joined Discovery’s crew to personally deliver the pressurized chamber. He is to coordinate the spacewalk from inside the station.

The 6.5-hour jaunt is the first of a record-tying five spacewalks that include the most challenging construction work ever attempted in a single mission.

The astronauts may get a little more time to tackle their to-do list because engineers have not spotted any significant problems with the shuttle’s thermal shield.

The crew has set aside several hours Saturday for a focused inspection of any trouble spots, but mission management team chairman John Shannon said that examination might not be necessary.

NASA has made damage inspections a priority since the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

A piece of foam broke off Columbia’s external fuel tank during liftoff and gashed a wing, allowing hot gases to penetrate the spacecraft during its return to Earth. All seven of its astronauts were killed.

Further analysis is needed before NASA can say for sure that Discovery suffered no significant launch damage. But given all the construction work on this mission, “We are extremely lucky that we have a vehicle that is in such incredible shape,” Shannon said.

During today’s spacewalk, Parazynski and Wheelock were to remove a broken antenna from the station and pack it aboard Discovery for its return to Earth, and prepare a space station girder for relocation later in the flight.

“It’s going to be a very interesting day. A lot of folks have been looking forward to this for a long time,” Shannon said.

Originally published by Associated Press.

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