Endeavour’s first spacewalk completed after minor glitches
Submitted by Sam Ross on May 23, 2011 - 11:21am
The spacewalk lasted for six hours and 19 minutes and came to an end after the sensor in the spacesuit of one of the astronauts brokdown. A carbon dioxide sensor in Greg Chamitoff spacesuit brokdown and the space walk came to an end at 9:29am Eastern Time.
As the carbon dioxide sensor failed, the officials did not have any way to monitor the carbon dioxide level in his suit, however he was not in any danger at that time.
The Spacewalk
Before the spacesuit sensor broke down, the astronauts successfully installed the antennas which will be used for external Wireless Communication system. The installation took around two and a half hour to complete. They also routed cables, connected the power cables, installed handrails and also setup the antenna during the spacewalk.
Astronauts also installed two-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), which will be used to measure cosmic rays. It will unravel the mysteries of dark matter and will also help in finding how the universe began.
During the space walk, astronauts successfully installed the ammonia jumper cable that connects the portion of the station's cooling loops. It is the important installation because in the second spacewalk, Feustel and Mike Fincke will repair the cooling loop from which there is a slow ammonia leak.
The astronauts were also scheduled to remove the micrometeoroid debris shield but, because of technical glitch during the walk they weren't able to do that, now they will remove it later.
During the space walk, Pilot Greg Johnson and Mission Specialist Roberto Vittori shifted the equipments and the communication systems which were on-board for the space station.
This is the 245th space walk conducted by the NASA astronauts and it was the first space walk of this final Endeavour’s STS-134 mission. For this mission four space walks are scheduled. This was Chamitoff's first space walk and Feustel's fourth spacewalk.
Endeavour was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday and after two day it reached international space station.
