Kibo added to International Space Station

William Atkins
Wednesday, 04 June 2008 18:38

Science - Space

The first spacewalk by two members of the NASA STS-124 crew, with the help of astronauts inside of the Space Station, removed the Japanese Kibo pressurized module from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery and secured it to the side of the International Space Station.

The operation, on flight day four, started about fifty minutes after its scheduled begin-time of 11:32 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (1532 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). on Tuesday, June 3, 2008.

As the two spacewalkers were preparing for the spacewalk while inside of the Quest airlock onboard the Space Station, Fossum learned that the communications headset of his spacesuit contained a loose cable, which caused him to hear loud, screeching noises.

However, the spacesuit was repaired, thus allowing the space job to begin a bit later, at 12:22 p.m. EDT, 1622 GMT.

Air Force Reserve colonel Michael E. Fossum and Air Force colonel Ronald J. Garan Jr. were positioned outside of the ISS while the other STS-124 astronauts were located inside in order to help perform the delicate operation of moving the bus-sized module to its final position on the International Space Station.

Discovery pilot Ken Ham supervised the operations of the two spacewalkers from inside the ISS. Mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Akihiko Hoshide, and Greg Chamitoff operated the robotic arms of the Space Shuttle and the Space Station.

The two spacewalkers, Fossum (with four spacewalks under his belt) and Garan (his first spacewalk), first freed the Kibo Pressured Module (PM) from its position inside the cargo bay of Discovery by removing some covers and locks and disconnecting several connectors.

Then, the astronauts inside used a robotic arm to transfer the Kibo out of the cargo bay and attach it to the side of the Space Station—on the berthing mechanism (common berthing mechanism [CBM]) at the port side of the Harmony node (Node 2).

Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide operated the robotic arm for the final phase of attachment of the Kibo PM to the ISS.

Upon the completion of the job, Hoshide stated, “We have a new hope on the international space station.”

The STS-124 capcom (capsule communicator) at the Mission Control Center (Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.) responded, "Fantastic job.” [CNN: “Astronauts attach giant lab to space station”]

“Kibo” in Japanese means “hope.”

The article is completed on the next page.