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**Over 2100mb of STS-116 onwards related presentions and mission documentation <\/em>available on L2<\/em> ** After a hugely complex, yet successful completion of tasks on EVA 3\u2019s re-wiring of the station, time was set aside to head up to the solar arrays that had unsuccessfully retracted earlier in the mission.<\/font><\/p>\n The P6 truss array was left in a safe configuration after the previously aborted retraction \u2013 to about half length of 17.5 bays \u2013 which was enough to allow the SARJ rotation of the P4 arrays. However, the current configuration is potentially a problem for Soyuz dockings to the Nadir port on the ISS.<\/p>\n After the visual inspection initially found the wires and grommets in good shape, Beamer was instructed to push against the array to see how the bays, wires and grommets reacted to the movement. <\/font><\/p>\n Beamer observed that three of the grommets were a problem, noting that grommets 1 through 9 were allowing the guide wire to move freely, but 10 through 12 were out of placement and conflicting with the wires. <\/font><\/p>\n Beamer then carried out more pushes, between five and 10 pushes at a time, and observed that grommets 10 and 11 appeared to improve their positions and released some of the tension. Even grommet 12, which could potentially remain as a problem, appeared to be in a more acceptable position.<\/p>\n After a good half hour of sightseeing above the planet from their orbital vantage point, the two spacewalkers waited for the next daylight pass to observe a retraction attempt on the P6 arrays.<\/p>\n The troublesome left side of the array was the focus of attention, as the retraction effort withdrew the array by one bay. Beamer continued to aid the tension on the guide wires with further shakes, before another one bay retraction was attempted.<\/font><\/p>\n This process continued \u2013 and with a high level of success \u2013 until the right array, observed by Williams, started to show similar signs of the guide wire going slack, caused by the same issue with the grommets.<\/font><\/p>\n That implemented the \u201cSuni Shake,\u201d which unfortunately only had limited success. By the time the arrays were retracted to about 11 bays, it was obvious to the spacewalkers that they had come to the limits of their shaking, to the point that it wasn\u2019t gaining beneficial results.<\/p>\n With time running out on their EVA time limits, Mission Controllers recalled the duo back into to Quest airlock, closing out what was easily one of the most fascinating spacewalks ever to have been carried out. <\/font><\/p>\n Space Shuttle models (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n EVA 4 \u2013 which was confirmed during EVA 3 \u2013 will now attempt different techniques in finding a solution to the tension issues between the guide wires and the grommets on the array box, hopefully leading to the completion of the retraction process.<\/p>\n Re-live the amazing EVA 3 events on the FD 8 Live Update Pages \u2013 see link below:<\/font> **INFINITY: 10 minute STS MUSIC VIDEO**<\/font><\/em> \u2013 **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n <\/font> EVA 3\u2019s primary requirement \u2013 to complete the second part of the re-wiring of the ISS \u2013 was carried out successfully on Saturday, but the fascinating highlight of the spacewalk proved to be in the last few hours. Spacewalkers Robert \u2018Beamer\u2019 Curbeam and Sunita Williams attempted to free the troublesome P6 arrays by literally shaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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**LIVE news updates on Discovery STS-116 \u2013 FOR EACH FLIGHT DAY**<\/em> \u2013 100s of live updates each flight day, including images and videos, all interactive.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/75.126.85.10\/xmas.gif\")
Upon arriving at the P6 blanket box, Mission Controllers on the ground in Houston requested a visual overview of the suspected guide wires and grommets, which were believed to be causing the bays on the array to bunch up during retraction.<\/p>\n
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**LIVE news updates on Discovery STS-116 \u2013 FOR EACH FLIGHT DAY**<\/font><\/em>
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<\/em>(Video section is FREE, but you need to sign up as a member of the forum to enter the video section of the site. We only use your e-mail to send you your password. It will not be used for spam etc.)<\/em><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/font><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"