Space Station Task Completed After Stalled Trolley Is Freed
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA got a scare Saturday when a $190-million trolley car needed to finish construction of the international space station stalled on the tracks before it could complete a 55-foot run.
A spacewalking astronaut was sent to investigate and discovered the trolley was hung up on an antenna that was still in its cradled, prelaunch position.
Astronaut John Herrington grabbed a power tool and deployed the antenna so that it no longer rubbed against a cable reel on the railcar.
Almost six hours after it halted, the trolley completed the remaining 10 feet of its journey.
The trolley runs along a mini-railroad that is part of a lengthy truss segment under construction on the space station. Its primary task is to move the station’s six-story robot arm from one work site to another.
The two-ton “mobile transporter” came to an abrupt halt about 10 minutes into its run. An attempt to restart it using computer commands did not work.
This was the first operational use of the trolley, which is critical to the remainder of the space station’s construction schedule.
It was the first glitch in the mission since Endeavour arrived at the station five days earlier.
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