Final walk for astronauts on Discovery mission

(NECN/NASA) – Two space-walking astronauts took on cable and antenna work at the international space station in their final trek outside, but encountered last-minute difficulty with a connector and had to leave one job undone. Lead space-walker Danny Olivas and his partner Christer Fuglesang unreeled 60 feet (18 meters) of cable for a new room that will be added to the orbiting complex early next year. The pair also hooked up a couple of Global Positioning System antennas and replaced some electronic equipment in their second excursion in three days. Everything went well until near the end of the seven-hour space-walk, when the two had trouble hooking up one of the cable connectors to a panel on the space station. What’s more, Fuglesang’s helmet camera came loose and it was difficult for flight controllers to watch him work, given the wobbly, upside-down pictures . Mission Control told Fuglesang to wrap insulation around the loose power connector and leave it like that. But then the camera and light assembly on his helmet came off entirely. Olivas removed the still-tethered assembly for him. Mission Control advised Fuglesang to use his helmet light as a flashlight if necessary; he was carrying the unit. He made it back safely and speculated he may have bumped his helmet while struggling with the connector. But officials at Mission Control later said it was likely a latch problem. “We’re going to have the crew, the ground look at some photos that Christer took and we’ll come up with a trouble shooting plan so we can attempt to resolve that on a future mission.”, said Zeb Scoville, STS-128 Lead Space-walk Officer. On Saturday evening, the two space-walkers got off to a fast start, making their way out along a girder and pulling open a shelf that will be used to store big spare parts later this year. Olivas helped install the framework on the right side of the space station two years ago. An identical shelf on the opposite side of the space station jammed when astronauts tried to pull it open back in March. It took a special tool and another mission to get the shelf open. Olivas and Fuglesang had the tool with them in case they ran into trouble, but the job went smoothly. NASA loaded Saturday night’s space-walk – the third and final one of Discovery’s space station visit – with all sorts of odds and ends, most of them mundane. During the first two space-walks, astronauts gave the orbiting complex a fresh tank of coolant. Fuglesang, a Swede, is the only non-American on Discovery’s seven-person crew. But the space station has one Belgian, one Canadian, two Russians and two Americans living on it. The combined crews make for a record-tying crowd of 13 in space. Saturday night’s space-walk was the last major job for the shuttle astronauts before they depart Tuesday. Their 13-day flight is scheduled to end with a landing back in Florida on Thursday.