Camera Installed on Station
Posted on: Friday, 11 November 2005, 12:00 CST
By AP Wire Service
SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) -- Two spacewalkers installed a camera on the outside of the international space station Monday and tossed overboard a surplus data-collecting device, sending it spinning off into the void like a spiraling football.
"How's that for a Hail Mary pass?" American astronaut William McArthur Jr. radioed.
"That was pretty impressive," Mission Control responded.
McArthur and his Russian crewmate aboard the space station, Valery Tokarev, left the station unmanned during the nearly 51/2- hour spacewalk.
Normally, one crew member stays aboard while two others venture outside. But the space station crew has been reduced to two since the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, and it has been left empty nine times during spacewalks.
The new camera will help space station astronauts add new segments onto the orbiting station.
The device thrown overboard was once used to collect data on electrical activity around the space station.
Engineers were afraid pieces might break off and damage the space station, so they decided to cut it loose. The device, which weighs 60 pounds and has solar panels that extend about 2 feet, is expected to burn up in the atmosphere in about three months.
Source: Tulsa World
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