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Shuttle Astronauts Recount Dramatic Solar Wing Repair

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The Associated Press

Published: November 7, 2007

Updated: 11/07/2007 12:55 am

CAPE CANAVERAL - With the mission finally coming to a close, Discovery commander Pamela Melroy acknowledged Tuesday she had been "extremely concerned" about the safety of the spacewalker who went out to fix the space station's ripped solar wing.

That spacewalker, Scott Parazynski, said he barely managed to reach the tangled wires that had snagged the wing. If the damage had been just another foot away, "it would have been a Plan B or C or D," he told The Associated Press. "I don't know what it would have been."

As they prepared to return to Kennedy Space Center this afternoon, the seven astronauts recalled the dramatic highlight of the 15-day International Space Station construction mission. Saturday's emergency repair of the torn wing at the station was an unprecedented, daring feat whipped up by flight controllers.

Discovery is bringing samples of steel shavings that are clogging a rotary joint needed to turn another set of solar wings at the space station, as well as astronaut Clayton Anderson, who spent five months at the station.

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