As Flight Day 5 proceeds with the successful deployment of the S4 solar arrays, NASA managers are meeting to discuss the procedures for carrying out the repair to the port OMS Pod blanket – which is currently focusing on EVA 3, Flight Day 8.
This decision would see the primary tasks previously scheduled for EVA 3 moving to EVA 4, accommodated by yesterday’s decision to extend Atlantis’ STS-117 mission by two days.
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The Mission Management Team (MMT) are meeting to decide on the timeline for the repair, which is expected to take around 90 minutes to complete. If this procedure is carried out on Flight Day 8, any problems that may occur could be corrected on the fourth EVA.
Meanwhile, the PDRS (Payload Deployment and Retrieval System) team is working the procedure to place the spacewalker in a foot restraint on the end of the arm and then put him near the OMS pod. A procedure timeline is expected tomorrow.
Flight Day 5 began after an interrupted sleep for the STS-117 crew, following an alarm that sounded due to a MDM (Multiplexer/Demultiplexers) Card failure. The MDMs provide serial communications between a Space Shuttle Payload General Support Computer (PGSC) and various subsystems.
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‘MDM issue has caused an annunciation on board that has awakened the crew,’ noted NASA information at the time of the failure. ‘Crew has been sent back to sleep and the ground will work issue now that the alarm has been silenced.’
However, the issue was soon cleared after the card was bypassed – which is a procedure that will have no detrimental effect on operations due to redundancy.
‘May have the crew perform an I/O Reset when awakened, but troubleshooting is TBD (To Be Determined),’ added information later in the morning. ‘No mission duration impact, even if entire MDM went down.’
The two new starboard side solar arrays on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) have been unfolded out to their 115-foot (35-meter) length. This followed yesterday’s Flight Day 4 S3/S4 truss installation on the S1 truss. Total ISS mass is now 509,000 lbs. All EVA-1 objectives were accomplished ahead of schedule, plus one get-ahead task.
In tandem, cargo exchange operations between Atlantis and the ISS have been proceeding unabated.
‘From Atlantis to ISS: ~725 lbs of internal dry cargo (27 ft3 in middeck) [including science support equipment, medical equipment, EVA support gear, camera equipment, laptop computers, TEPC (Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter) assembly, and atmospheric monitors (CSA-O2, CSA-CP); ~1235 lb or 559 L of water (13 CWCs @43L or 95 lb each); ~40 lbs (up to 100 lbs) of oxygen as margins permit],’ noted the On Orbit status report.
‘From ISS to Shuttle: ~900 lbs of internal dry cargo (33 ft3 in middeck), [i.e., components for failure analysis (SCU, TEPC), completed samples of science experiments, air/water samples, internal coolant sample, miscellaneous trash and life-expired components, etc.]’
In other news on Tuesday, the SRB (Solid Rocket Booster) Retrieval Team have reported that both boosters are clean with no observed damage sustained during their two minute assist of Atlantis.
‘The BI-129 Solid Rocket Boosters were inspected for debris damage and debris sources at CCAFS Hangar AF on June 12, 2007 from 0630 to 1030,’ noted an expansive report, which concluded, ‘there were no anomalies.’
The booster videos have arrived at NASA this morning. No note has been made on the public release of the videos.
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