NASA on Saturday decided to shorten the duration of space shuttle Endeavour's mission by one day amid growing concerns that approaching Hurricane Dean may complicate the originally scheduled landing on Wednesday, according to a press release posted on the NASA website.
Mission Control in Houston, Texas, has given the STS-118 crew a greenlight for undocking Endeavour from the International Space Station (ISS) at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT) Sunday.
Mission managers made the decision as astronauts Clay Anderson and Dave Williams were wrapping up the fourth or final spacewalk of the mission earlier Saturday.
Closing the hatches at 5:10 p.m. (2110 GMT) Saturday allows Endeavour to undock from the station Sunday in preparation for a possible landing on Tuesday. The earlier landing is being considered in the event Hurricane Dean threatens the Houston area. It would allow an opportunity for the shuttle to land before Mission Control would be shut down to prepare for a storm.
Managers will continue to review the forecast for Dean as they assess their options.
Astronauts Anderson and Williams embarked on the spacewalk at 9: 17 a.m. (1317 GMT) Saturday, 44 minutes ahead of schedule. The spacewalk, initially slated to run about 6.5 hours in duration, lasted for about five hours.
The extra time saved from a shortened and ahead-of-the schedule spacewalk allows the early hatch closing and departure.
During the spacewalk, Anderson and Williams installed a shuttle inspection boom stand on the station, retrieved a pair of materials exposure experiments for return to Earth, and secured an S-band antenna mount. They also installed a wireless sensor system antenna before returning to the station. The excursion was the 92nd spacewalk devoted to ISS.
In a related development, President George W. Bush, who was reportedly briefed twice Saturday on Hurricane Dean in his Crawford ranch, has approved a pre-landfall emergency declaration for Texas, where Mission Control is based, if the state is hit by Dean.
Hurricane Dean is plowing towards Jamaica and the Gulf of Mexico and its intensity has reportedly increased to near Category 5 which could be extremely devastating.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article