Atlantis astronauts Patrick Forrester and Steven Swanson spent another 6 hours in space on Sunday, completing the 4th, and final spacewalk of mission STS-117. This last spacewalk was a bonus, scheduled after mission controllers decided to send the astronauts back out to repair a protective blanket on the orbiter's left aft engine pod.
The blanket repairs were made on Friday, but there were still uncompleted tasks for the installation of the new truss and solar panels onto the International Space Station. So, back into space.
The spacewalkers exited the station at 12:25 pm EDT, and worked to complete a series of minor tasks: attaching additional meteorite shields, connecting an ethernet cable, and aligning a drive lock assembly. Their most important task was to release launch restraints on the newly installed solar array. It's now able to swivel freely, keeping the panels pointed at the Sun for maximum power.
It looks like the station's computer system is back online now, after cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov bypassed malfunctioning protection circuits. NASA and Russia performed a series of tests over the weekend to make sure the computer system is operating correctly again. The station was relying on Atlantis to keep it oriented properly. Without the shuttle's assistance it would start to tumble.
Atlantis* is expected to undock from the station on Tuesday, and will land back in Florida on Thursday.
