Two spacewalks down; two new pieces in place on space station

The 2 spacewalkers work on the International Space Station Monday

Astronauts to venture out again Tuesday morning

In this story: Two more spacewalks on mission Space station crew training in Russia RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Miles O'Brien
CNN Space Correspondent

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- During a seven-hour shift in the void on Monday, a pair of NASA's free-floating "hardhats" guided another big component safely into place on the International Space Station.

Using the Space Shuttle Discovery's 50 foot robotic arm, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata plucked a 2,700 pound (1,215 kilogram) docking port from the orbiter's cargo bay.

With spacewalkers Michael Lopez-Alegria and Jeff Wisoff guiding him like a moving crew, Wakata deftly maneuvered the component -- known as Pressurized Mating Adapter #3 -- into its spot on the U.S.-built "Unity" module.

An automated latching device successfully tightened 16 bolts -- leaving the component snugly in place. The PMA will serve as docking site for future shuttle missions.

It was the second of four spacewalks scheduled for this -- the 100th -- space shuttle mission.

Tuesday morning, astronauts Leroy Chiao and Bill McArthur were to venture outside space shuttle Discovery once again, this time to put in a pair of power converters, connect a few final cables and mount a toolbox to the space station exterior.

On Sunday, Chiao and McArthur successfully connected a series of cables linking another new 9.5-ton (8.55-metric ton) component to the space station. The so-called Z-1 truss was installed by Wakata -- using the robotic arm -- on Saturday.

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The aluminum truss will serve as cornerstone to the structure that will support the football-field length solar arrays for the $100 billion station. It also contains the crucial motion control gyroscopes and a Ku Band satellite dish.

Discovery's Ku satellite dish failed on the first full day of this mission -- which began with a Kennedy Space Center launch on October 11. Among other things, the antenna transmits full-motion TV signals from the orbiter to a network of satellites in geo-synchronous orbit. Failure of the dish has made full-motion TV images from this mission a rare commodity.

Even so, the backup system -- capable of transmitting still images every 15 seconds or so -- offered a spectacular slide-show of space station construction in action.

There were a few snags. The astronauts had some trouble with a foot restraint designed to keep them in place as they did their work. The crew offered to bring the sticky restraint into the orbiter to do some trouble-shooting.

The crew also had a few problems securely connecting cables and loosening bolts with their cordless drills. But by the end of the workday, they had completed all their chores.

With the spacewalk complete -- the 52nd in shuttle history -- Discovery Commander Brian Duffy was set to fire the orbiter's thrusters to give the station an upward boost -- the first of three such maneuvers scheduled for this mission. Visiting orbiters routinely give the station a nudge -- in order to save ISS propellant.

The first permanent three-man crew of the space station -- commanded by U.S. Astronaut Bill Shepherd -- is in the final stages of training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia. Shepherd and Russian cosmonaut crewmates Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Kirkalev are slated to launch to the station aboard a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 30. Their mission should last four months.

Discovery's mission should end after 11 days in orbit. The most traveled of shuttles will end its 28th mission -- bringing its seven crewmembers home on Sunday, October 22, at 2:10 p.m.

Discovery docks at International Space Station
October 13, 2000
Shuttle Discovery zooms in on orbiting outpost
October 12, 2000
Shuttle soars into space for 100th time
October 11, 2000
NASA scrubs 3rd attempt to launch shuttle
October 10, 2000
Wind gusts force delay of 100th shuttle flight
October 9, 2000
Technical troubles push 100th shuttle launch to Monday
October 6, 2000

Shuttle Orbiter Discovery (OV-103)
NASA
Human Space Flight (HSF) - International Space Station

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