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Astronauts Fix Solar Panel Rip

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By MARCIA DUNN, The Associated Press

Published: November 4, 2007

CAPE CANAVERAL - Astronauts successfully unfurled a torn solar power wing at the International Space Station on Saturday after spacewalker Scott Parazynski cut loose a tangled clump of wires and patched everything.

His emergency surgery saved both the solar energy panel and the space station.

"This was just a fabulous effort," said Mike Suffredini, the space station's program manager. "Our baby is still beautiful to us."

In the tense buildup to the spacewalk - one of the most difficult and dangerous ever attempted - NASA warned that station construction would have to be halted if the wing could not be fixed.

The prospect was so grave that NASA felt it had no choice but to put Parazynski practically against the swaying power grid with its more than 100 volts of electricity. No astronaut had been so far from the cabin's safe confines.

Parazynski worked on the damage for more than two hours, cutting hinge and guy wires that became snarled and snagged the wing when it was being extended Tuesday.

The astronauts had just relocated a massive beam at the space station and finished extending its first solar power wing when the second wing got hung up after extending only 90 feet.

Parazynski, 46, an emergency medical doctor before becoming an astronaut, looped five makeshift braces into the wing to reinforce a partially ripped hinge.

The spacewalk lasted more than seven hours. It ended station construction work for the seven shuttle astronauts. The shuttle will leave Monday. Landing is set for Wednesday.

Work remains for the station's three occupants. They need to move the pressurized compartment delivered and installed by the Discovery crew and make three spacewalks before shuttle Atlantis can launch with the first of two new laboratories. Liftoff is targeted for Dec. 6, but could be delayed a few days, Suffredini said.

NASA still has to figure out what to do about a rotary joint that is not working right and can be used only sparingly to turn another set of solar power wings toward the sun. Steel shavings were found inside the joint during a spacewalk Tuesday, apparently the result of grinding parts.

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