Aug 18 2007

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STS-118 Mission Specialist Dafydd R. Williams and ISS Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Clayton C. Anderson made the fourth and final spacewalk of STS-118. Over the course of 5 hours, the pair installed the antenna of the External Wireless Instrumentation System, attached a stand for the extension boom of the Shuttle’s robotic arm, and retrieved two materials experiment containers for return to Earth aboard Endeavour. Mission Control had cancelled approximately 2 hours worth of tasks from the EVA to enable the crew to close the hatch between the ISS and the Shuttle in preparation for an early departure. NASA managers had rescheduled the return flight to enable Endeavour to land a day early, in case Hurricane Dean headed toward Houston. The hurricane could have forced an emergency relocation of flight controllers from Houston to a makeshift control center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. A temporary control center would have been neither as organized nor as large as the Houston operation.

NASA KSC , “STS-118”; Marcia Dunn for Associated Press, “Astronauts Hurriedly Complete Spacewalk,” 19 August 2007.

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