Astronauts to Get Extra Days in Space

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts will get to enjoy the view from space for a few extra days.

NASA managers decided Monday to extend Atlantis’ mission to the international space station from 11 to 13 days. They wanted enough time to squeeze in an extra spacewalk so astronauts can repair a wayward thermal blanket near the shuttle’s tail that peeled back during launch Friday.

Engineers at Johnson Space Center already were practicing techniques on mock-ups to use for the blanket repair. The thermal blankets are used to protect the shuttle from searing heat during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

"It was a 100 percent consensus that the unknowns of the engineering analysis and the potential damage … under the blanket was unacceptable and we should go in and fix it if we could," said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

Engineers didn’t think the intense heat generated by re-entry could burn through the graphite structure underneath the blanket and jeopardize the spacecraft or the lives of astronauts. But they worried it might cause some damage that would require repairs on the ground.

With three additional shuttle flights to the space station planned this year, NASA can’t afford delays. During the repair, an astronaut will probably reach the blanket, located near Atlantis’ tail, by attaching himself to the end of the shuttle’s robotic arm and boom.

No decision had been made on whether the loosened blanket, covering a 4-by-6-inch area over a pod for engines, will be repaired during a previously planned third spacewalk or a fourth, extra one.

"We think that if … we can secure it somehow, we don’t have to worry about that blanket anymore," Shannon said.

The rest of the shuttle appeared to be in fine shape, Shannon said.

Mission Control on Tuesday planned to begin remotely unfolding a pair of solar arrays, which two astronauts helped install on the international space station during a spacewalk Monday.

Astronauts James Reilly and Danny Olivas removed locks and restraints on the new truss segment, which was attached earlier Monday to the station’s girder-like backbone. The start of the spacewalk was delayed by more than an hour because the four spinning gyroscopes that keep the space station properly positioned became overloaded. Space shuttle Atlantis was used to help control the station’s orientation until the gyroscopes were able to take over again.

Starting overnight, the 300-foot pair of arrays was to be deployed from its storage box on the new segment slowly, in stages, to get the panels warmed by the sun and prevent them from sticking together.

It is the station’s third pair of solar arrays and is similar to a pair that was added to the station last September.

On Wednesday, another solar array will be folded back up in a box so that it can be moved during a later shuttle mission. The retraction of that array will allow the new pair of arrays to rotate, following the direction of the sun. If the array proves troublesome folding up, as a similar one did during the last shuttle mission in December, astronauts are prepared to help get it retracted during the station’s second spacewalk.

"We have an advantage over the last shuttle flight in that we can learn from their experiences," said lead flight director Cathy Koerner.

—

On the Net:

Shuttle mission: http://www.nasa.gov/mission-pages/shuttle/main/index.html