Oct. 11, 1984: Dave Leestma, bottom, works on a mock satellite refueling system. Kathy Sullivan floating at the Shuttle’s robot arm photographs his work.

*****

Spacewalk day at last, October 11, 1984.  We’re the crew of the 13th Shuttle flight, all eyes on our two spacewalkers.  Tasks for Kathy Sullivan and Dave Leestma:  Install the Orbital Refueling System (ORS) into a simulated satellite fuel line.  After that, they must move the Ku-band into position so it can be locked for landing.  

We’re on our 100th orbit aboard Challenger, over the South Atlantic as Dave exits first from the middeck airlock into the payload bay.  Hauling himself through the circular hatch, he looks up into the grandeur of open space.  “Boy!” he exclaims.  Sometimes a simple exclamation says it better than a thousand words.  Four minutes later, Kathy pokes her head through the hatch and pulls herself into the void, becoming the first American woman to walk in space.  “This is really great!” she calls.

At the rear flight deck windows, like an air traffic controller, Crip calls, “Look around guys.  Takes a moment to look at Earth and appreciate where you are.”

And they do.  They do for a moment, amazed at how quickly, despite the dangers of a vacuum, they feel comfortable, swimmers in a new ocean.   Ah, but they can’t take very long.  There’s work to do!  From the Shuttles tool box at the side of the bay, they gather the equipment needed to insert a refueling valve between two tanks.  They head along the slidewire on the port side of the payload bay for the mock satellite fuel system in a rectangular box fixed to a girder-like support structure at the rear of the bay.  Leestma performs the actual task of attaching the valve and line connecting the two tanks.  The highly toxic hydrazine fuel will not be pumped between the tanks during the spacewalk — only after.  It’s delicate work near the tanks of dangerous hydrazine.  Sullivan at his side, hands him the ten tools needed for the task and photographs every step of the operation.  “You need a photo before you get the bolt on,” she calls at one point.

When she has a moment, she says, “I don’t need to tell you how much fun this is, do it?”  Everything is going just as planned, right on the timeline.  Indeed, in the middle of the work, Crip calls, “Why don’t you guys take a break . . . and take a look at the ground.”  We’re passing over Cape Cod.

“Oh, look at that,” Dave says, “Cape Cod is beautiful.”

They finish off the task, and Dave says, “I’m just going to float back and watch the world go by.”

“Sounds like a noble enterprise to me,” Kathy says.  She can’t rest yet; she has one last job — helping lock down the misguided, malfunctioning Ku-band dish antenna.  She must move to the starboard side of the payload bay and work her way forward along the sill of the open bay. There are no handrails for this unplanned task.  Securely tethered, she floats across the middle of the bay, gliding over the U-shaped OSTA pallet, careful not to knock it.  The black antenna dish is at the forward corner.  She then moves forward along the sill of the open payload bay, walking her hands forward, her legs above her in a handstand.  With a shift in perspective, she feels like she’s hanging from a tree limb.  Arriving at the forward bulkhead, she must position the dish so that locking pins, commanded from the cabin can latch it.  She wiggles the dish into position.  “It’s so loose on both gimbals right now that I’m not sure we’re precisely positioned.”

Crip warns, “Be careful with it.  It’s very fragile.”

When it appears aligned, we close the pins.

Observing the antenna, Leestma says, “I can confirm the top one’s firmly latched.  And the bottom one looks locked, too.”

Kathy echoes, “I can confirm them both . . .”

She isn’t quite done yet, floating to the stowed SIR-B antenna, it’s three flat panels folded into a sandwich.  Earlier in the flight, we’d had problems latching the antenna down.  Sally Ride used the robot arm as neatly as anything to gently tap down the panels until they latched.  The antenna has been extended and folded since then, and seems to be latching OK.  She gives it a check.  She calls, “You might tell the SIR-B people this is one role as a fellow investigator I didn’t anticipate having — antenna inspection on orbit.”

Houston calls, “Kathy, can you verify that you can see no interference at all between the inner leaf and the outer leaf that would have kept it from closing?”

“No — it looks to me like the insulation, especially on the upper leaf outer surface, is just hitting enough that that just have been enough to impeded a single motor from driving it shut. . .  I think we just have an insulation problem.”

And with that, after more than 3 hrs. outside, the pair make their way to the airlock.  A circular insulation cover for the hatch breaks loose from its tether and floats into the bay.  Dave calls, “Oh, shhhh.  Will we be able to catch up to it?  Oh, dear . . .”

Crip sees it float under the OSTA pallet.  Crip tries to move the cover forward to them by firing some jets to pull the Shuttle back. 

“I see it now — OK,”  Leestma says.

Crip says, “I’m not having much luck moving it forward.”  Of course actually he’s trying to move the Shuttle back while the free-floating cover doesn’t move.  It’s all a matter of perspective!

Kathy calls, “It went further aft, Dave.”

He says, “I think I can get it.”  And he grabs it.  . . .OK, what am I going to hold it with?”  Deciding not to risk trying to tether it, he keeps a firm grip on it with one hand, and says, “OK, let’s go back in.  Here we are at the hatch.”

And the official end of the spacewalk comes after 3 hrs. 29 min.  In that time, they’d covered it all!