STS-120 Mission Extended One Day, Crews Prepare for Spacewalk

SPACE - As crew members aboard the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Discovery prepared for the third spacewalk, they learned that the shuttle will spend an extra day in space with landing now scheduled for Nov. 7. The additional docked day has been inserted between the fourth and fifth spacewalks and provides for some crew off duty time along with ample equipment preparation and turnaround for the fifth spacewalk scheduled for Saturday.

After analyzing photos of debris found inside the station’s starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint, mission managers decided to devote the mission’s fourth spacewalk Thursday to further inspection of the joint.

As a precursor to the additional rotary joint inspection spacewalk, Tuesday’s spacewalk by Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock will include a short task to inspect the port rotary joint to provide comparison data to station managers who will spend the night developing procedures for the fourth spacewalk. All other tasks for the third spacewalk remain as trained with the focus being on installation of the P6 truss and solar array pair to its permanent location outboard of the port truss.

The crews completed final preparations for the P6 truss installation and continued outfitting and activation of avionics and systems racks inside the Harmony Node. Despite the shutdown of the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly in the U.S. Destiny laboratory, work continues as normal with no interruption to operations with other means of carbon dioxide scrubbing equipment on board.

The crew day ended with Parazynski and Wheelock beginning their routine overnight “campout” in the Quest airlock. They plan to begin the spacewalk at about 5:28 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

Source: NASA