Heroic Effort Repairs Torn Solar Panel
Astronaut Scott Parazynski has completed repairs to the torn solar panel on the International Space Station. Riding on the extreme outer end of the station's robotic arm and an extension to it, Parazynski used cobbled-together tools and fasteners to cut tangled wires that had caused the damage, then fasten the torn area back together. Following the successful repairs, the solar panel was fully deployed and locked into place.
"Excellent work guys, excellent," space station commander Peggy Whitson said, after the wing was locked in place.
"Before we do the victory dance let's get Scott safely back to structure and then we can all rejoice," Discovery commander Pamela Melroy said as the robotic arm started driving Parazynski back to the station.
Perched at the tip of a 90-foot robotic arm and boom extension, Parazynski worked at the far left end of the linked shuttle-station complex, about half a football field away from the pressurized compartments where the astronauts work and live.
The ugly snag involved a guide wire, two hinge wires and two grommets. Parazynski first clipped a hinge wire near the larger tear, using a special tool that looked like a hockey stick to make sure the panel didn't spring back and hit him.
The solar panel captures sunlight to generate electricity, and is alive with more than 100 volts of electricity, possibly as much as 160 volts.
"It's a bit of a reach here," Parazynski said as he stretched to cut part of the guide wire.
"It's what those monkey arms are for," Melroy said, referring to Parazynski's 6-foot-2 height.
As soon as Parazynski cut the guide wire, the approximately 90-foot stretch of it recoiled all the way down into a reel where fellow spacewalker Douglas Wheelock was controlling and monitoring it. To everyone's relief, it retracted smoothly. "Beautiful. Nicely done," Parazynski reported.
Animations and images from yesterday's briefing show just how dangerous this repair was. That is one long way up to be working without a net. There is only one video still capture posted at the NASA shuttle page right now, but I'm sure they will have better images up soon. Great job, folks.
By NortonPete, Saturday, 3 November , 2007 @ 12:34 pm
I watched some of the repair work live on NASA TV. When I told my wife that the panel had live current and she saw Parazynski cutting the guide wire with some ordinary looking hand tool that looked like a pair of vise grips with tape wrapped around it, she refused to watch it anymore. “I don’t want to see someone get zapped on live TV”, she said.
Amazing effort. Now what will be the headline? :
NASA fails to deploy solar array without doing repairs during spacewalk. Or some such negative wording.
By Uncle Pinky, Saturday, 3 November , 2007 @ 1:12 pm
Awesome.
While I love the concept of the spacewalk, pulling one of would scare the bejeebers out of me. Add in live electricity and I’ll be hiding under the bed (at my mom’s house.)
Superlative work, and thanks for bringing it to my attention.