Astronauts give up on jammed solar wing

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station abandoned troubleshooting efforts on a jammed solar panel Wednesday, leaving it half extended, and went forward with the next steps in their mission to rewire the outpost’s electrical system.

Mission controllers told the astronauts they were considering mounting an additional spacewalk later in the mission to manually retract the solar wing.

Spacewalkers Robert Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang completed the first of three planned spacewalks Tuesday, successfully installing a new metal piece to the station’s backbone.

The 115-foot solar wing had to be moved out of the way so new arrays installed on the station in September could rotate to track the sun for power.

Although the panel didn’t fully retract, the path was cleared for the new arrays to rotate for the first time since they were installed.

“We consider it a success,” astronaut Steve Robinson in mission control told the crew. “We are watching the [panels] rotating on the big screen and people are darned happy about it.”

Also Wednesday, astronauts unloaded cargo from the shuttle Discovery and helped prepare for the mission’s second spacewalk today.

The station and space shuttle crews spent more than five tedious hours retracting and then re-extending the wing, hoping to smooth out misalignments that repeatedly caused the array to jam.

The delicate golden panels, which are studded with solar cells, were supposed to fold up into a storage box at the base of the array.

They did -- at first -- but then the bottom panels started buckling out of position.

The problem reoccurred dozens of times, but the panel was folded up enough to give the new arrays room to spin.

Engineers had been concerned the wing might not fold as designed since it has been spread out in the harsh space environment for twice as long as planned.

“It’s kind of like folding a map up,” space shuttle Discovery commander Mark Polansky radioed mission control. “You start folding it and the folding goes the wrong way.... There’s nothing you can do to it other than pop it back in place or unfold it and try again.”

The panel is one of two that have been providing power to the U.S. part of the space station since 2000. NASA wanted to rewire the station in 2003, but the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia halted all shuttle flights.

Station assembly resumed in September, with a new deadline to complete the outpost before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. NASA needs at least another 13 missions to finish building the complex.

The Discovery crew, which arrived at the station Monday for a weeklong stay, needs to rewire the station’s electrical system to tap power produced by the new solar panels.