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American Morning

International Space Station Stages Impromptu Space Walk

Aired December 03, 2001 - 08:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There is an important mission this morning. It is happening about 250 miles above us.

Miles O'Brien knows a lot more about it than the rest of us sitting here in the studio this morning because he follows this stuff very closely.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Are you calling me spacey?

ZAHN: There's actually a space walk under way. No, you're not spacey.

O'BRIEN: OK.

ZAHN: You're just smart and have followed the space program very closely for years.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.

ZAHN: What exactly is going on right now?

O'BRIEN: Well, this is an important space walk, kind of an ad hoc space walk. There are two Russian cosmonauts on board the international space station. About 20 minutes ago, they stepped into the void, if you will, for about a six hour space walker to repair a problem with a docking collar outside the international space station.

Now, this problem became evident -- let's take a look at some, this is file pictures from last week. As this unmanned Soy -- excuse me, Progress vehicle came in for a docking at the international space station -- there you see the station and the docking port is somewhere in the glare. Now this is a shot shot from that unmanned freighter as it came in. That's the docking target which it aims for. You've got to line up those crosshairs. This is all done in an automated fashion.

Well, everything went off without a hitch right until the end. The docking process is a two step process and in the course of going from the so-called soft dock, where it is attached but sort of wobbly, to the hard dock, where a series of 16 latches closed, causing a firm seal and to maintain atmospheric pressure, apparently what happened was this got in the way. I think that's hard to see, but let me see if I can sort of highlight it for you there. That actually right in there is a little piece of a wire right there. And that wire made it impossible, jammed those latches, and as a result that unmanned freighter is sort of stuck in that soft dock position, which is the wobbly position.

Why is that a problem? Well, the space shuttle Endeavor is supposed to go visit the space station and the rules of the space station say you cannot dock another craft while a spacecraft is in that wobbly docked position because of the forces that are exerted on the space station.

Now, let's take a look at the crew that's going to be involved in this space walk. This is the commander of the mission. He'll stay inside. That's Frank Culbertson, NASA astronaut. Vladimir Dezhurov and Michael Turin (ph) are the two cosmonauts that are outside as we speak, beginning the process of going to that wire and pulling it out.

Meanwhile, the space shuttle Endeavor is on the launch pad amid some unprecedented security there at the Kennedy Space Center, concerns, obviously, about terrorists. These Apache helicopters were flying all overhead.

There you see a recent landing of the space shuttle. And there you see F-15s flying right over the space shuttle, unprecedented in the history of NASA's space program.

The decision will be made this afternoon after this space walk. If that wire is unseated and that freighter is firmly docked, NASA will make the decision to slate Endeavor for launch tomorrow at 5:45 president.m. Eastern time.

There you see some live pictures coming from NASA Television right now. And basically that just shows you that the space station is right here traveling in this sort of parabolic line over the globe 250 miles above us, 17,500 miles an hour, just a little bit of work outside of that -- Paula.

ZAHN: Bet you'd love to be up there, wouldn't you?

O'BRIEN: Yes, I would. Let the record show I'd rather be there reporting on it than here.

ZAHN: We heard you. It's on the recorded for good.

Thanks, Miles.

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