SPACE WALK OF ASTRONAUTS PROLONGED








KOROLEV (Moscow Region), March 13, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondent Eduard Puzyrev/. The time for a space walk was prolonged for ISS astronauts from the shuttle Discovery Andrew Thomas and Paul Richards.


	The Russian Mission Control Centre reports that the space walk was prolonged from four hours to six and a half because during their first walk into space on Sunday the astronauts did not do all the work they had to. In particular, they had no time to prepare the place for assembling cargo manipulator which will be brought by the next ship.


	As NASA representative in the Russian Mission Control Centre Sergei Puzanov explained, at the present time the astronauts are preparing the place on the station's surface for placing equipment, for instance a pump, which will be brought by the next ship. It will pump cold air through the system which cools solar batteries.


	Astronauts Susan Helms and James Voss spent about seven hours during the EVA last Sunday. After that they entered the air lock chamber of the shuttle and, not putting off their space suits, controlled for about two hours from the shuttle the unloading of the Leonardo container module and its fastening on the surface of the station. Since their space suits remained in the autonomous regime and were not connected with the shuttle's life-support system, the time of their presence in the air lock chamber of the ship was added to the time they spent in outer space. "As a result of this, the media reported that the astronauts spent nine hours in outer space, though really they were out of the shuttle only seven hours," the NASA representative said. -O-   (kos/nog) 


	


	13/03/01    19:00