Space Station Antennas Attached in 2nd Spacewalk

HOUSTON —  Two astronauts ventured out on another spacewalk Wednesday and attached antennas to the international space station under construction nearly 250 miles above Earth.

In a tense and meticulously planned operation, they also pried open a stuck antenna on Zarya, the Russian-built side of the space station. All it took was several pokes with a 10-foot pole and the 4-foot strip antenna shot out.

“There it goes! It’s gone!” spacewalker Jerry Ross shouted.

“You got it deployed. All right,” Mission Control radioed up.

It was the second time this week that Ross and James Newman floated out the hatch of the shuttle Endeavour to work on the seven-story, 35-ton station taking shape in the open cargo bay. They completed their priority--installing two 100-pound antennas on Unity, the American-made side--3 1/2 hours into the seven-hour spacewalk.

Even with the antenna repair, the spacewalk was not nearly as difficult or crucial as Monday night’s outing, during which Ross and Newman hooked up 40 electrical connections between Zarya and Unity.

It was a struggle, though, to get Unity’s suitcase-size antennas out of the narrow tunnel leading into the cargo bay. The spacewalkers had to back out of the tunnel feet first with the bulky, swinging antennas in tow.

“Pretty tremendous view when you come out and look at that--wow,” Ross said, gazing up at the space station.

The astronauts hoisted the antennas halfway up the 36-foot Unity on the end of the shuttle robot arm. Then they mounted the units on opposite sides of the cylinder, where just an hour earlier they had routed a video cable.

The aluminum can gleamed in the sunlight, its “Unity” emblem clearly visible.

“Kind of neat working up here right by the Unity sign, isn’t it?” Ross called to his partner.

Once activated, the antennas will provide a direct, virtually uninterrupted communication link between Unity and NASA’s Mission Control. Otherwise, U.S. flight controllers would have to rely on the sporadic coverage provided Russia.

The electronic and computer hookups for the antennas will be made inside Unity today, after the entire crew enters the orbiting station for the first time.