International Space Station

It’s two down and one to go for Atlantis’ spacewalkers. Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik wound up a successful 6-hour, 8-minute outing after completing their scheduled tasks ahead of schedule and get-ahead jobs. The official end of the spacewalk was at 2:39 p.m. CST. It was the second of the three scheduled during Atlantis’ visit to the International Space Station. The start was a little later than planned, about 8:30 a.m., because a false depressurization alarm had sounded on the station at 8:53 p.m. Friday, interrupting the crews’ sleep and the spacewalkers’ campout in the Quest airlock. The spacewalkers completed the process of reducing ... Read Full Story

An overnight interruption in their preparations will mean that Mission Specialists Mike Foreman and Randy Bresnik will head out of the station’s hatch on the second spacewalk of the STS-129 mission a little later than planned. The International Space Station again experienced a false depressurization alarm that originated from the new Poisk Mini-Research Module overnight. The station’s automatic response resulted in a shutdown of ventilation systems, which led to two smoke detectors issuing a false alarm, as well – one in the Columbus European laboratory and one in the Quest airlock, where Foreman and Bresnik were camping out as part of the pre-breathe protocol ... Read Full Story

Though it began a little later than planned, the STS-129 crew is awake and starting work on the day’s activities. Their wakeup call came at 3:28 a.m., which gave them 30 extra minutes intended to make up for sleep lost overnight when false depressurization caution alarms sounded on the International Space Station. That occurred just after 7:30 p.m., about 30 minutes after the crew began its sleep period. Although the flight control teams on the ground were able to determine that there was no depressurization occurring, the crew was never in any danger and ventilation fans were shutoff as a precaution. That shutoff kicked ... Read Full Story

Astronauts from the US space shuttle Discovery ventured out of the International Space Station for a third spacewalk that will be the last of their mission. NASA astronaut Danny Olivas and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang left the ISS on Saturday at 2039 GMT for what is scheduled to be a 6.5 hour spacewalk, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. The pair are "working quickly and efficiently moving ahead of their timeline," NASA said. Their tasks include replacing a failed rate gyro assembly, a device that measures rates for any changes in the station's altitude, with a new one. Olivas is ... Read Full Story

Astronauts from the US space shuttle Discovery ventured out of the International Space Station on Saturday for a third spacewalk that will be the last of their mission. NASA astronaut Danny Olivas and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang left the ISS at 2039 GMT for what is expected to be a 6.5 hour spacewalk, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said. The pair are expected to "deploy an attachment system" and "replace a device designed to help the station determine its position relative to the Earth," NASA said. Fuglesang, of Sweden, and Olivas on Friday installed a liquid ammonia tank to keep ... Read Full Story