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Astronauts finish unfolding giant robot arm
Spacewalker's irritated eyes cause brief interruptionHOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- A minor eye problem briefly disrupted Sunday's spacewalk, but two astronauts completed their task of unfolding a large robot arm attached to the international space station, NASA officials said. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield told mission control that his eyes were tearing up but that he could continue with his work. NASA officials believe a soap used in cleaning his helmet may have irritated his eyes. Hadfield worked with U.S. astronaut Scott Parazynski on unfolding the robot arm, known as the Canadarm 2. The spacewalk lasted just over seven hours.
The space shuttle Endeavour docked with space station Alpha on Saturday, 243 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Endeavour lifted off Thursday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying the 58-foot Canadarm 2, a larger and more advanced version of the Canadian-built robot appendage located aboard the shuttle. The new robot arm is designed to move space station modules and experiments about. Later additions will allow it to do detailed repair work as well. The new arm will not be locked into one place aboard the station -- it will be able to move along the station's hull to reposition itself as needed to continue the station's construction. It is so long that it would not have fit inside the shuttle's cargo bay unless it was folded, and so heavy -- 3,618 pounds (1,644 kilograms) of aluminum, steel and graphite epoxy -- that it could not support its own weight on Earth. Endeavour will spend one week docked with Alpha. The shuttle departs April 28, the same day Russia is scheduled to launch a Soyuz spacecraft to Alpha. The Soyuz will bring up two cosmonauts and possibly Dennis Tito, the 60-year-old American businessman who reportedly paid Russia up to $20 million for a 10-day round-trip excursion to the space station. NASA opposes the visit, but a spokeswoman for the space agency said Friday that preparations are under way for Tito's seemingly inevitable arrival. "We have asked our operations teams to look at the space station crew's timeline during the (Soyuz) taxi flight to see what kind of modifications could be made to their schedule to ensure everyone's safety," Kirsten Larson said. RELATED STORIES:
Endeavour docks with space station RELATED SITE:
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