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CBS NEWS STS-123 STATUS REPORT: 33
Posted: 7:55 PM, 3/15/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Analyst
Changes and additions:
SR-30 (03/14/08): Dextre powered using station arm
SR-31 (03/14/08): CSA, NASA officials elated with successful power up
SR-32 (03/15/08): Astronauts gear up for second spacewalk
SR-33 (03/15/08): Spacewalk No. 2 begins
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7:55 PM, 3/15/08, Update: Spacewalk No. 2 begins
Running 34 minutes ahead of schedule, astronauts Richard Linnehan and Michael Foreman switched their spacesuits to battery power at 7:49 p.m., kicking off a planned seven-hour spacewalk to attach two 11-foot-long arms to a Canadian maintenance robot being assembled at the international space station.
This is the 106th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year and the second of five planned by the shuttle Endeavour's crew,. Linnehan, veteran of a 2002 Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, is making his fifth spacewalk while Foreman is making his first.
In the daily "execute package" of instructions uplinked to the shuttle-station complex, flight controllers jokingly paraphrased science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics to fit the special purpose dexterous manipulator robot, known as Dextre for short.
"Optimus Prime, Gigantor and Robbie the Robot are here in MCC (mission control center) today, representing the Robot Actors Guild, to celebrate the launch of Dextre," the note said. "There was an embarrassing gaffe last month, during (shuttle flight) STS-122 when they came out to honor the wrong "Dex." (shuttle pilot Alan Poindexter)
"We've incorporated a few new flight rules, now that we are about to have robotic EV's:
"1. Dextre may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
"2. Dextre must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders
would conflict with the First Law.
"3. Dextre must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
"The guild members bristled about these rules and, 'being held down by the man,' but figure that they can't be held back for long. 'First Dextre, next Data, then THE MATRIX!' declared Optimus at arrival at JSC."
It will take the astronauts a half hour or so to set up tethers and tools and to make their way to the forward face of the station's solar power truss where they will spend the next several hours attaching Dextre's arms.
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Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-123 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-123 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
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