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 Mission Specialist Joe Tanner works during a space walk. (AP Photo/NASA TV) |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (CP) - Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean became just the second Canadian to walk in space Wednesday as he and fellow Atlantis crew member Dan Burbank began "taking care of business" high above the Earth - the arduous job of freeing up a new set of solar arrays to help power the International Space Station.
MacLean and Burbank started their planned six-hour spacewalk over the Indian Ocean at 5:05 a.m., focusing their attention and tools on a ferris-wheel-like rotary joint that, once freed, will allow two solar arrays to always face the sun as the space station circles the Earth. The solar arrays will supply a quarter of the space lab's power when it is completed by 2010.
To pump them up for what promised to be a tough and repetitive job, Mission Control played "Takin' Care of Business" by Canadian rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive for their wake-up song.
"We'll be taking care of business getting the solar arrays prepared," MacLean said in response.
Mission Control later reported that another bolt, similar to the one that went missing during Tuesday's spacewalk, was lost Wednesday.
MacLean told Mission Control that he was removing a cover on the rotary joint when one of the four bolts he needed disappeared.
"I did not see it go," MacLean said. "I'm looking to see if anything is floating."
MacLean ran into another small problem a short time later when an extension on his pistol-grip power tool broke while he was trying to remove a restraint on the rotary joint.
"Son of a gun," he muttered, then gathered the pieces in a trash bag so they wouldn't float away and went to a toolbox to retrieve another.
The process was further slowed by a stuck bolt, forcing MacLean and Burbank to struggle together to finally get it loose. Astronaut Joe Tanner, inside the space station, helped out.
"We sure appreciate you answering that age-old question from Mission Control - how many astronauts does it take to unscrew a bolt," said astronaut Pam Melroy in Mission Control in Houston. "Apparently, it takes three. Two outside and one inside."
On Tuesday, astronaut Tanner lost another bolt during a spacewalk with astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. He asked MacLean to be on the lookout for it Wednesday.
"I've been looking for that bolt all along but I haven't seen it," MacLean said.
Tanner and Piper planned to return for a third spacewalk Friday.
Space debris can be dangerous if it punctures space station walls or spacesuits and can jam crucial mechanisms. However, spacewalkers have a long history of losing things in space. In July, Discovery spacewalkers lost a 35-centimetre spatula that floated away.
There was no indication that the latest missing bolt went into the rotary joint or any other space station mechanisms, and the assumption is it floated away, NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma said. He said that the astronauts simply used three bolts for the task instead of four, and that there shouldn't be a problem with that.
The astronauts had to remove more than a dozen insulation covers and scores of bolts wearing bulky spacesuit gloves.
Chris Hadfield, the NASA Chief of International Space Operations and the first Canadian to walk in space, described the spacewalking experience in an interview Wednesday as "bordering on miraculous."
"It's an incredibly surreal environment to be in, to be able to just flick your wrist and spin your body around and to be floating effortlessly and moving hand over hand around the outside of this enormous human creation in orbit," he said in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"On top of that, every time (MacLean) looks to the left, the world is going by at incredible speed, at eight kilometres per second."
Burbank and MacLean need to release and remove the 16 locks and six restraints that kept the rotary joint in place during Saturday's launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. The astronauts were also removing more than a dozen insulation covers and scores of bolts.
Hadfield said the astronauts' work outside the shuttle is exhausting, especially while inside the space suit - or extra-vehicular mobility unit - which he likens to a "little one-person space ship."
"Every time Steve wants to bend his arm or squeeze his hand together or turn his body he is fighting the resistance of this balloon that is keeping him alive," he said.
"You're carried along by the necessity of getting your job done and also the adrenaline rush you get from being in this place."
Hadfield was the first Canadian to float freely in space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2001.
During the 11-day flight, Hadfield performed two spacewalks, spending a total of 14 hours, 54 minutes outside and travelling 10 times around the world, according to the Canadian Space Agency. The astronauts circle the Earth every 90 minutes.
"When I finished my first space walk and came back inside, I was a vegetable," he said. "It was completely draining through the combination of the physical effort required to work the suit as well as the psychological pressure of doing something that you only get one chance to do and that everyone is counting on you to do right."
Wednesday's spacewalk was the second of three spacewalks to hook up the new US$372 million addition to the space station during Atlantis' 11-day mission.
Hadfield said that for MacLean, Wednesday's work was the culmination of years of intense preparation.
"Some people call it training, but in reality it's invention. You have to do something that nobody's ever done before and you have to do it right the first time," he said.
Hadfield said astronauts are taking stock of the changes made to the shuttle since Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry in 2003.
On flight Day 2 MacLean inspected the shuttle with a Canadian made robotic arm and found no damage.
The use of the Canadarm and its 15-metre extension throughout the Atlantis mission is sure to raise Canada's profile, said Hadfield.
"This flight is impossible without Canadian inventions and Canadian creativity and Canadian support," he said.
MacLean, 51, was selected as one of the first six Canadian astronauts in 1983 and first flew aboard Columbia in 1992.
The laser physicist, originally from Ottawa, is the second Canadian to walk in space. Chris Hadfield was the first Canadian to do so in 2001.
MacLean was chief science adviser for the space station from 1993 until 1994, when he was appointed director of the Canadian astronaut program for two years.
His wife Nadine Wielgopolski, and three children, Jean-Phillippe, 16, Catherine 14, and Michele, 13, are watching the spacewalk from Montreal.
