CHAPTER 20 DAY IN THE LIFE: WHEN MAJOR ANOMALIES OCCUR 370 in the small crewlock, Wakata shut the hatch between the crewlock and equipment lock, and the crew performed a crewlock depress to vacuum. They opened the hatch around 6:00 a.m. Houston local time, about 10 minutes earlier than planned. These types of events are a big deal in Mission Control, with photographers and, in this case, a videographer walking around in the room. The excitement in the crew members’ voices could be heard as they experienced a spacewalk “live.” Their helmet camera views as they looked at the Earth and took photos of each other could be seen. Their time in the spacesuit was limited— they would deplete their suit of consumables and be very fatigued at the end of the day—so every minute counted. The team in Mission Control was hypersensitive of time, since they might have the opportunity to get ahead on this first spacewalk and actually pull the Pump Module out of the truss to temporarily stow it. That would mean the new Pump Module could be installed and working with only one more spacewalk. Due to all the training and preparation, the flight control team might appear calm to the casual observer. However, everyone is on high alert and is highly vigilant. Figures 11, 12, and 13 show the crew and flight control team working the EVA. Figure 11. Koichi Wakata, representing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is shown “driving” the SSRMS at the Robotic Work Station in the US Laboratory during one of the EVAs. A few curve balls were thrown at the crew and Mission Control during the spacewalk with respect to the tools, the Pump Module and its QDs, the spacesuits, and other space station items. For example, a foot restraint was difficult to remove from the location where it had been stowed for quite some time in the harsh space environment, but it eventually came free. Also, some of the fluid QDs (Figure 7) were difficult to manipulate, and one of them leaked a small amount of ammonia. This leak looked like floating snowflakes bouncing off of both spacesuits. This occurred early enough in the spacewalk that the crew was outside a long time after this point, giving the ground team confidence that any ammonia had baked off. The flight director at the end of the EVA waived the Flight Rule that indicated a test