NASA officials said preparations are on schedule for a Feb. 22 spacewalk despite last Sunday's power outage at the International Space Station. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said ISS commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin will have several conferences with Russian spacewalk specialists during the next few days.
Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will exit the Russian Pirs docking compartment wearing Russian Orlan space suits next Thursday to prepare a Progress 23 cargo craft for undocking.
An antenna on the Progress 23 failed to retract properly when it docked in October; the spacewalkers will remove the antenna or secure it. Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will also set up a materials science experiment on the outside of the Zvezda service module.
Lopez-Alegria has accumulated 61 hours and 22 minutes during nine spacewalks. NASA mission controllers in Houston said that is longer than any U.S. astronaut and second only to Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solvyev.
Source: United Press International
