A Stitch in Time

June 12, 2007 — -- Need to repair the shuttle? Grab a needle and thread. NASA is considering using a sewing kit kept on the space shuttle for spacesuits to fix the wrinkled blanket on the orbital maneuvering system pod on Atlantis.

NASA decided earlier this week to extend the STS 117 mission by two days to give spacewalkers time to repair the damage caused when thestitching on the thermal blanket pulled up during launch last week.

STS 117 Cmdr. Rick Sturckow says he is happy to extend the mission to give them time to fix the problem. "This is just the right thing to do, the conservative thing to do and we appreciate everyone taking a look at it and fixing it."

The next task for the crew is a repeat of the STS 116 mission: Balky solar arrays. Last December when the arrays refused to fold up, spacewalking astronauts went out and shook them, rattled them, bounced them until the solar arrays finally retracted.

Once again solar arrays take center stage on the space station Wednesday when engineers in Mission Control start to slowly retract the P6 array, one bay at a time. Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini hopes a slow methodical retraction will help the arrays fold up neatly with no hang ups.

If not, spacewalking astronauts Steve Swanson and Pat Forrester will be standing by to help out.

While the spacewalk is going on, the Mission Management Team will be working out the details of a spacewalk to repair the damaged thermal blanket.

John Shannon, the chair of the Mission Management Team, prefers not to let the shuttle fly home without fixing the damage because he is afraid the heat of re-entry could cause even worse damage -- damage that could take weeks to repair on the ground, but just a couple of hours for a spacewalking astronaut crew to fix on orbit.

Astronaut Heide-Stefanyshyn Piper practiced repair techniques on the ground at the Johnson Space Center. She used a spacewalking glove, and a big curved needle that is part of the shuttle tool kit, to stitch a blanket sample to a thermal tile. Shannon wants more information about what will happen to the damaged blanket on the shuttle's return trip to Earth. He is having a mockup tested in a wind tunnel and also in an arc jet facility.

Once those tests are complete, the Mission Management Team will schedule the spacewalk to fix the problem for either Friday, or Sunday.

The astronauts had a scare when a fire alarm in the space station sounded, sending the astronauts scrambling for the emergency manuals, until Mission Control declared a false alarm.

Astronaut Suni Williams is wrapping up her six-month stay on the International Space Station. Saturday morning at 1:47 a.m. ET she will break Shannon Lucid's endurance record for most time spent on orbit for an American woman. By the time Atlantis lands Williams will have spent 194 days in space.