International Space Station Status Report: SS06-005

International Space Station Status Report: SS06-005

Space station crewmembers released a spacesuit-turned-satellite during the second spacewalk of their mission last night. Called SuitSat, it faintly transmitted recorded voices of school children to amateur radio operators worldwide for a brief period before it ceased sending signals.

Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev ventured outside for a five-hour, 43-minute spacewalk to release SuitSat, conduct preventative maintenance to a cable-cutting device, retrieve experiments and photograph the station’s exterior. Clad in Russian Orlan spacesuits, McArthur and Tokarev opened the hatch to begin the spacewalk at 5:44 p.m. EST. It was the fourth career spacewalk for McArthur and the second for Tokarev.

After setting up tools and equipment, they positioned the unneeded Orlan spacesuit on a ladder by the station’s Pirs airlock hatch. The suit reached the end of its operational life for spacewalks in August 2004. It was outfitted by the crew with three batteries, internal sensors and a radio transmitter for this experiment.

The SuitSat provided recorded greetings in six languages to ham radio operators for about two orbits of the Earth before it stopped transmitting, perhaps due to its batteries failing in the cold environment of space, according to amateur radio coordinators affiliated with the station program. The suit will enter the atmosphere and burn up in a few weeks.

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