S6 Truss Installation Complete; Solar Panels Deployment Friday

The first of three planned spacewalks during Discovery's stay at the International Space Station is in the books. On Thursday, astronauts installed the station's final truss segment, Starboard 6, containing the fourth pair of solar arrays.

Once the solar array wings are unfurled, the segment will provide the final complement of power to the station.

After station robotic arm drivers John Phillips and Koichi Wakata guided the truss into position, spacewalkers Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold connected bolts to permanently attach S6 to S5.

The spacewalkers plugged in power and data connectors to the truss, prepared a radiator to cool it, opened boxes containing the new solar arrays and deployed the Beta Gimbal Assemblies containing masts that support the solar arrays. Swanson and Arnold reentered the station at 7:34 pm EDT.

Mission Control in Houston deployed the radiator, and the stage is set for solar array wing deploy on Friday morning.

Thursday's spacewalk lasted six hours, seven minutes. It was Swanson's third spacewalk and Arnold's first, and the 121st spacewalk in support of station assembly, totaling about 762 hours.

FMI: www.nasa.gov