Damage repaired in space

The daring walk vindicates those at NASA who designed the procedure.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Veteran astronaut Scott Parazynski stepped out into one of the most dangerous spacewalks ever planned Saturday and successfully repaired the International Space Station’s damaged solar array after nearly five hours of nail-biting work.

Cutting wires and harnessing damaged solar panels together, Parazynski dangled at the end of a boom attached to the end of a 58-foot robotic arm, studiously avoiding making contact with the electrical array, which could have badly shocked him or worse.

The mission was deemed critical by NASA after a tangled guy-wire got snagged Tuesday while the array was being unfurled. The snag tore a two-and-a-half foot hole on one solar panel and slightly ripped another nearby. The damage to the station’s power system threatened to sink future space shuttle missions to the orbiting platform.

“Hooray,” Parazynski shouted when the array was unfurled to its full 110-foot length. The achievement not only clears the way for future shuttle missions to station, but also sets the stage for the addition of a new European laboratory next month.

The daring walk by Parazynski enshrines the 46-year-old emergency room physician and veteran astronaut as an agency hero, and vindicates NASA engineers and mission managers who designed the daring repair procedure.

The astronauts re-entered the shuttle at about 1:20 p.m. after a spacewalk that lasted more than 7 hours.

NASA still has to figure out what to do about a rotary joint that isn’t working right.