STS-82 Flight Day 07 Highlights

Abstract

The seventh day of the STS-82 mission begins with the crew, Commander Kenneth D. Bowersox, Pilot Scott J. Horowitz, Payload Commander Mark C. Lee, and Mission Specialists Gregory J. Harbaugh, Steven L. Smith, Joseph R. Tanner, and Steven A. Hawley performing their third spacewalk of the mission by emerging from Discovery's airlock. Their first task is the replacement of a Solar Array Drive Electronics package which is used to control the positioning of Hubble's solar arrays. Harbaugh and Tanner next venture to the top of the telescope where they replaced covers over Hubble's magnetometers, which are used to sense the telescope's position in relation to the Earth through data acquired from the Earth's magnetic field. The spacewalking astronauts then place thermal blankets of multi-layer material over two areas of degraded insulation around the light shield portion of the telescope just below the top of the astronomical observatory.