Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Space station gets bigger

Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

HOUSTON – Using their ship’s robotic arm, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis handed over the first big addition to the international space station in more than 3 1/2 years Monday and now will conduct three spacewalks to install the giant new section.

Atlantis’ heat shield is so trouble-free that NASA engineers late Monday decided they didn’t need to spend key hours Wednesday to examine the ship’s skin very closely. Instead, astronauts will spend the week focusing on connecting the new addition, which starts with a spacewalk early today.

But before anything could be connected, the shuttle had to deliver the giant framework to the space station in a delicately choreographed unberthing that later involved a handoff of a 17 1/2-ton construction piece from one robot arm to another. Both were built in Canada.

“There you have it: the great Canadian handshake,” said astronaut Steve MacLean, a Canadian.

The flight marks the first time since the 2003 Columbia disaster that NASA has resumed assembly of the orbiting space lab. The newly delivered piece consists of a truss and electricity-generating solar panels that can rotate with the movement of the sun – and the parts have been waiting for launch for several years.

There were so few questions with the shuttle’s heat shield that NASA opted against its focused inspection, which had been a key aspect of the previous two flights.

The lack of an inspection allows the shuttle to undock Sunday instead of the following day, giving the space station an extra day to prepare for its next visitor – a Russian Soyuz that launches Monday.