STS-97
Report # 13 
Wednesday, December 6, 2000 - 7 p.m. CST 
 
  Endeavour^s astronauts worked Wednesday to get ready for the
Thursday spacewalk by Mission Specialists Joe Tanner and Carlos
Noriega.  They also took a few hours off to rest and enjoy the view
from their spacecraft, moving at five miles a second about 235 miles
above the Earth.

  Spacewalk preparations focused on techniques to tighten one of two
solar blankets on the starboard wing.  They got the word that task had
been added to the spacewalk schedule shortly after they were awakened
about 6:30 a.m. They reviewed the procedures during a conference with
flight controllers later in the day.

  Commander Brent Jett, Pilot Mike Bloomfield and Mission Specialists
Marc Garneau will support Tanner and Noriega from the Endeavor^s
crew compartment, retracting by two or three feet the mast extending
the two blankets of the starboard wing.

  Once the mast is shortened, Noriega will pull the slack in the
tensioning cables through each spring-loaded take-up reel.  Tanner
will manually ^wind^ the spring-loaded tension reels. When
each has reached its limit, Tanner will let it unwind by spring force
while Noriega guides the cable on to the reel grooves. The outboard
reel will be done first, followed by the inboard reel. The cables
apparently came out of the grooves when the wing was extended on
Sunday.  Both wings of the 240-foot-long, 38-foot-wide array continue
to function well, producing power to the space station.
 
  After the solar wing repair, Tanner and Noriega will install the
Floating Potential Probe atop the P6 structure.  It measures the
electrical potential of plasma around the station.

  Expedition One Commander Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Sergei
Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko had a busy day aboard the space
station. They installed a new air conditioning unit brought up by the
Progress supply vessel which docked with the station Nov. 17 to
replace one that had failed earlier in the week.  The new unit is
functioning well.  The crew also replaced a malfunctioning fan in the
Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal unit, bringing that life-support unit
back on line.

  Shepherd went back inside the Unity module about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday
to install electrical outlets and air ducts and separate the power
feeds going to the early communication and S-band communication
systems, providing additional redundancy.

  Endeavour^s crew was scheduled to go to bed a little after 10
p.m., about two hours before the space station crew was to be awakened
at 12:06 a.m. Thursday.  The wakeup call for the STS-97 crew will
sound at 6:06 a.m.

The next STS-97 status report will be issued Thursday morning.

###


NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available

automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to 

majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the 

subject line)  users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the email address 

 that sent the subscibe message to the news release distribution list. The system will reply 

with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed you will 

receive future news releases via e-mail.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe hsfnews" in the body of a message (without the quotes) to majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov