2 Spacewalking Astronauts Power Up Links to Station

Two spacewalking astronauts successfully hooked up 40 electrical connections between the first two pieces of the international space station on Monday, allowing power and data to flow from one side to the other.

To NASA’s surprise, the critical wiring job took less time than expected.

Jerry Ross, NASA’s most experienced spacewalker, deftly snapped the connectors together as James Newman handed him the attached cables. They were impressed with the seven-story station towering above them.

“This is sure a beautiful piece of hardware,” Newman said.

Ross worked nonstop from the end of Endeavour’s 50-foot robot arm, starting at the bottom with the American-made Unity module. He attached jumper cables there before being hoisted more than 40 feet to the Russian-built Zarya stacked on top.

“Jerry, how’s the view?” Newman asked from below.

“Fantastic, if I had time to look,” Ross replied.

It was up to Newman to unclamp the 20- to 30-foot power cables and hand them, one at a time, to Ross to link to the mate on the other side. At times, cables seemed to float every which way--an octopus, the spacewalkers laughingly called it. The colder the cables, the stiffer they became, making it difficult for Ross to join them.

Each man’s spacesuit was equipped with a mini jetpack in case their safety lines broke.

Ross and Newman completed the electrical connections four hours into their nearly 7 1/2-hour spacewalk, the first of three scheduled for this week. Before the astronauts went back inside the shuttle, flight controllers turned on the power inside the fledgling station; electricity had been shut off to the cables before the spacewalk, for the astronauts’ safety.

Endeavour’s crew used the robot arm and thruster rockets Sunday to snap together Zarya and Unity, forming a 77-foot, 35-ton tower in Endeavour’s cargo bay. Construction of the space station hinged on making the electrical hookups, said NASA’s lead flight director, Bob Castle.

Unity, a connecting passageway, needs the solar power generated by the Zarya module. The computers, heaters and fans inside Unity began humming for the first time in orbit once the electricity started flowing from Zarya.