By RIA Novosti
Washington : Discovery shuttle planners have rescheduled a spacewalk to Saturday for fixing a ripped solar wing of the International Space Station (ISS), US space agency NASA’s website said Thursday.
The spacewalk, originally due to take place Thursday, will be undertaken by Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock. The two astronauts plan to use the space station’s robotic arm to fix the damaged solar wing.
Initially, the current Discovery mission, launched on Oct 23 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, was to deliver docking ports for European and Japanese laboratories at ISS.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is concerned that the existing damage to the solar wing could worsen, leading to a loss of its ability to collect power.
Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle newspaper quoted Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station programme manager as saying that if the astronauts are unable to fix the wing then the most likely option will be to jettison it.
The damage was spotted Sunday, when astronauts noticed some metallic grit on the device turning the batteries to track the sun for power.