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Astronauts finish second Hubble walkSeven hours, 16 minutes of 'extra-vehicular activity'
Editor's note: The third of five Hubble spacewalks -- a sensitive one in which mission specialists John Grunsfeld and Richard Linnehan are to replace the telescope's "PCU," or power control unit -- is to begin at roughly 1:30 a.m. EST Wednesday and last for some seven hours. (CNN) -- A pair of spacewalking astronauts, hanging some 350 miles above Earth, added a second new solar array to the Hubble Space Telescope on Tuesday. "Beautiful day for a spacewalk," said astronaut James Newman as he floated out into the cargo bay of space shuttle Columbia. "Wow, it's beautiful," said fellow spacewalker Michael Massimino. Newman was making his fifth spacewalk. Massimino was making his first. The two were being assisted by mission specialist Nancy Currie, who drives the shuttle's robotic arm from inside Columbia. The arm is used to lift the spacewalkers up the side of Hubble, which is latched into the shuttle's cargo bay. NASA confirmed that the second panel had been successfully installed and the spacewalkers continued with other improvements for Hubble until 8:56 a.m. EST, when the "EVA" or spacewalk ended -- seven hours, 16 minutes after it began.
While outside, the duo also installed a new reaction wheel assembly, a device that helps aim Hubble. One of the four devices had a brief outage in November and engineers were worried it might fail again. "You choreographed some good work today," Mission Control in Houston told the astronauts. New wingsOn Monday, fellow astronauts John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan performed the first of the mission's five spacewalks, successfully installing the first of Hubble's new solar wings. The new wings are smaller, but 20 percent more efficient than the old ones, which were flimsy and produced vibration. The old wings had been attached during Hubble's first servicing mission in 1993. They will be packed into Columbia's cargo bay and brought back to Earth. Columbia is carrying $172 million in new equipment for Hubble, In addition to the solar wings, and reaction wheel assembly, the new parts include a power-control unit, a more advanced camera and a system to restart a disabled infrared camera. In all, the Hubble upgrade mission is scheduled to last 11 days. Columbia older than HubbleThe Hubble Space Telescope, a joint venture of NASA and the European Space Agency, was launched in 1990. Because of a structural defect, it produced seriously blurred images until visiting shuttle astronauts made repairs in 1993. Hubble already has given scientists an impressive view of the universe. The orbiting telescope has produced images related to a comet breaking up near the sun, the ruins of a stellar explosion 10 billion light-years away and the cosmos' rate of expansion. First launched in 1981, Columbia is NASA's oldest operational shuttle. It flew 26 missions before undergoing a $164 million overhaul following its last flight in November 1999. |
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