CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — NASA canceled today’s spacewalk to inspect a snarled joint for a set of solar panels and instead instructed its orbiting astronauts to go out a day later to try to fix a torn solar wing.
The newly ripped wing is now the more pressing of the two problems at the international space station, both of which involve the crucial power system and threaten to disrupt future construction work.
Engineers scrambled to put together a plan for a spacewalk as early as Friday to tackle the wing, which remains partially deployed. It ripped in two places as it was being unfurled by astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex Tuesday, and a hinge may have been yanked and partially ripped.
Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager, said engineers suspect the wing became snagged on a support for one of the wing’s guide wires. They do not want to reel it in to make it easier to access for spacewalkers for fear it could be further damaged.
The torn section of the wing cannot be reached with the space station’s 58-foot robot arm. So NASA plans to attach the shuttle inspection boom to the station’s robot arm and put Scott Parazynski on the boom to free the snagged part of the wing.
It helps that Parazynski is tall – 6-foot-2 – and has long arms.
If more time is needed to prepare, the spacewalk will be deferred until Saturday. But NASA would prefer to attempt it on Friday in case something goes wrong and another spacewalk is needed to finish the job.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the space station from the torn wing, a rotary joint that controls the solar wings over there is out of action. A spacewalking astronaut discovered steel shavings in the right joint last weekend, the apparent result of grinding parts.
Suffredini said he and others will figure out what to do about the joint once Discovery undocks from the space station.
Meanwhile, Halloween did not go unnoticed in orbit.
Clay Anderson, who’s winding up a five-month space station stay, wore a black cape as he went about his work. Daniel Tani, his replacement, wore a black eye patch.
