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Fifth STS-123 spacewalk complete

STS-123 Mission Specialists Robert L. Behnken, KE5GGX, and Mike Foreman completed the fifth spacewalk of their mission at 10:36 p.m. EDT Saturday.

Robot arm operators grappled the Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS), and the two spacewalkers assembled an umbilical designed to keep the boom safe during its time in the harsh space environment. Then, the robot arm handed the OBSS off to Behnken and Foreman, who stowed it on the station’s S1 Truss.

Spacewalkers work outside of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA TV

The next component of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory, which will be delivered on space shuttle Discovery during the STS-124 mission, is too large to accommodate the OBSS in the shuttle’s payload bay. Once the next element of Kibo is installed on the station, Discovery’s astronauts will detach the OBSS left behind by space shuttle Endeavour, use it to perform tile inspections and bring it home.

After the STS-123 spacewalkers attached the boom to the S1 Truss, Behnken installed the Materials International Space Station Experiment 6 on the outside of the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory, and Foreman inspected the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint.

The spacewalkers also completed a few get-ahead tasks, installing trunnion covers on the Japanese Logistics Module – Pressurized Section and stowing tools in a toolbox on the airlock before ingressing the hatch.

The crew of space shuttle Endeavour will end their visit to the station with undocking Monday and will return to Earth Wednesday

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