NASA Preparing Plan for Risky Spacewalk

"NASA officials hustled Friday to finish planning a riskier-than-usual spacewalk to save a ripped solar wing at the international space station.
The agency hopes to send veteran spacewalker Scott Parazynski to conduct the repairs on Saturday.

It will be a difficult and potentially dangerous mission for Parazynski, who runs the risk of being shocked as he tries to fix the damaged panel.

Parazynski also will be farther from the safety of the station than NASA would like, upping the ante for problems such as glove tears or spacesuit malfunctions.

The safety concerns led the space agency to delay the outing a day to give experts on the ground more time to analyze every detail. Astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex were spending Friday studying the plans and preparing equipment."

www.physorg.com...

This sounds like a major job.
I hope it all goes according to plan.
If anyone finds any pics or video of this event,please post Links here.
Good Luck Parazynski !


[edit on 2-11-2007 by Silcone Synapse]

Hope they brought along some bailing wire and duct tape. That can fix most rips.

Here's an animation of the proposed repair activity.

STS-120/eva4animation

Looks like Scott (Parazynski) will have quite the ride on the way to the array.

And the NASA page for more pics.

reply to post by Jbird


Hey thanks Jbird-interesting links.
I just caught a small video of the sapcewalk and repairs on BBC news 24.
Man,that guy is doing a scary job,suspended in space on the long arm.
Going well so far.

Update:

BBC news 24 have just reported that the repair mission was a success!
Parazynski is now safely back inside,and has fixed the solar panel rip.
Good job that man,under pressure and in a hostile environment he managed to get the job done without compromise.

I'm off outside to let off some fireworks in honour of Parazynski ,right now.