STS-122 Astronauts Finish Final Spacewalk

N5VHO – February 15, 2008 – 20:43
Space Shuttle

Astronauts Rex Walheim and Stanley Love completed the third STS-122 spacewalk at 3:32 p.m. EST today. The excursion lasted seven hours and 25 minutes.

In this final scheduled spacewalk of the mission, Walheim and Love installed two payloads on the exterior of the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory. The first, SOLAR, is an observatory that will monitor the sun for two years. The second is the European Technology Exposure Facility, which will carry nine experiments requiring exposure to the space environment.

With Mission Specialist Leland Melvin driving the space station's robotic arm, Love carried each of the experiment packages from space shuttle Atlantis’ payload bay to Columbus where the spacewalkers installed them.

In addition, Walheim and Love – with the help of the station’s robot arm – moved a failed control moment gyroscope from its storage location on the station to the shuttle’s payload bay for return to Earth. The spacewalkers examined a small divot on a handrail near the Quest airlock to collect data on whether it could be a possible source for glove damage on recent spacewalks. They also installed handrails on Columbus.

Pilot Alan Poindexter guided the spacewalkers from inside the orbiting complex.

Atlantis and the STS-122 crew are scheduled to leave the space station on Monday, with undocking slated for 4:26 a.m. that day.

Source http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html