| ISS Expedition 14 Spacewalk #1 - Longest Golf Shot In History |
[Nov. 23rd, 2006|12:53 am] |
Only some of the objectives of the first International Space Station Expedition 14 spacewalk were met successfully on Wednesday evening (U.S. time).
Flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin (Russia) and commander Michael Lopez-Alegria (United States) were an hour late in beginning their spacewalk - there was a kink in one of the cooling system hoses in Tyurin's spacesuit. The issue was resolved and both men exited the Pirs docking compartment airlock and went to work.
Thomas Reiter, representing the European Space Agency, supported the spacewalk from inside the ISS.
The first task was a golf ball tee shot. Canadian firm Element 21 paid the Russians an undisclosed amount to carry out the demonstration and provide footage of the event to be used in advertising.
Tyurin used a gold-plated six-iron golf club to hit a 3 gram golf ball. The ball was struck properly, missing any ISS structures, and is expected to burn up in the Earth's upper atmosphere after 48 orbits (about a million miles of travel, making it the longest golf shot in history).
Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria then turned their attention to a stuck docking antenna on a Progress resupply ship at the aft end of the Zvezda service module, the module that houses the crew living quarters.
In theory, the spacewalkers should have been able to release a latch and manually guide the antenna into a retracted position. In reality, the latch was released but the antenna failed to be moved manually into its proper position. Photo documentation of the antenna was made and it is anticipated the task will be revisited on a future spacewalk after ground controllers analyze the situation and come up with other ideas to retract the antenna.
Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria completed their final two tasks of the spacewalk -- repositioned a navigation antenna to be used for guiding unmanned European cargo ships to docking with the ISS and installed a solar flare particle measuring experiment to the outside of the Zvezda module.
Expedition 14 crew are expected to make three more spacewalks during their time on-orbit. |
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