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Astronaut fixes shuttle in smooth move'It looks like this big patient is cured'
 Robinson's gloved hands pull the second of two gap fillers from the shuttle's belly. RELATED
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSJOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas (CNN) -- Discovery astronaut Steve Robinson described it as "a ride of a century" as he was maneuvered through space to the shuttle's belly and gently plucked filler material sticking out from tiles in two places. "My eyes have never seen such a sight," Robinson said. NASA responded to the successful mission: "Nicely done, Steve." Robinson's wireless mounted camera provided a spectacular view of the shuttle's underside. "Stand tall and lean forward," NASA's mission control told Robinson as they moved him closer for the repair. Robinson was positioned within inches of the haul and reached his gloved hand out to delicately remove the protruding material. "I'm grasping and pulling ... it's coming out very easily... beautiful." The astronaut was placed in a portable foot restraint at the end of the robotic arm more than 220 miles above Earth on the international space station and maneuvered to the bottom of Discovery to remove the first of two gap fillers -- on the port side of the craft near the nose. Once the material was placed in Robinson's trash bag, he was transported to the second filler location on the starboard side of the craft, also near the nose. In what can be described as a heart-pounding few moments, Robinson was inched closer and closer to the filler -- clearly visible on his helmet cam. At 8:55 a.m. ET he reached out and again easily pulled the filler piece free. "It looks like this big patient is cured," he said. After the two pieces were safely stowed away, Robinson pulled out his camera to take pictures of the orbiter for analysis by engineers. "It just looked too easy," a thrilled mission control radioed Robinson. Gap fillers are thin fabric stiffened with a ceramic material that is used to plug gaps between the heat-resistant tiles on the orbiter. In what was described as a "choreograph of delicate robotics" Robinson, with his tether tied behind him to prevent it from hitting the hull, had approached the orbiter to free the gap filler material. If it had not come free, Robinson had a handyman's set of tools to help him. Robinson described the first piece of filler he removed as 3-by-1 inches and bent in the corner. During the procedure, which took an hour and six minutes, the other crew members were keeping an eye on Robinson via a camera on the space shuttle's boom. Mission specialist Andy Thomas coordinated the spacewalk. A second astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, space walked at the same time, providing communications and visual support to Robinson and flight controllers. The removal of the gap fillers was added to the list of tasks set out for the spacewalk, during which Robinson and Noguchi installed an external storage platform to the space station. The spacewalk began at 4:48 a.m. ET and wrapped up at 10:49 a.m. ET -- ahead of schedule. On Thursday, the crew will continue to transfer cargo from the space station to the shuttle's Raffaello multipurpose logistics module (MPLM) and then get some well-deserved downtime. Discovery is scheduled to return to Earth on August 8. Shuttle firstRobinson's assignment marks the first time NASA has ever tried to repair the exterior of a shuttle in orbit, a capability developed in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster. "We proved we could get access to the bottom of the vehicle," said lead spacewalk director Cindy Begley at a press briefing on Wednesday. NASA managers decided Monday to attempt the repair after an analysis showed the protrusions might produce excessive heat during re-entry and threaten the spacecraft. The protruding gap fillers were discovered during an extensive inspection of Discovery's exterior, carried out by cameras and lasers on a new boom on the space shuttle. The crew of the space station also photographed the underbelly of the shuttle before it docked last Thursday, part of a new inspection regime put in place after the Columbia disaster. Calculations by NASA experts showed that the protrusions could increase the re-entry temperature by 10 percent to 30 percent, possibly exceeding NASA's safety guidelines for how much heat the shuttle's thermal protection system should be allowed to endure, said Wayne Hale, NASA's deputy shuttle program manager. While the protrusions might not pose any threat to Discovery, the "large uncertainty" about their possible effect on the aerodynamics of the shuttle convinced NASA officials to try to fix the problem in space, he said. Hale said there is no data to show whether previous shuttle missions have managed to return safely with similar protrusions. While extended gap fillers have been found before, they were only discovered after landing, leaving NASA experts with no way to know whether the material shifted before or after re-entry. Discovery can return safely without either of the gap fillers in place, Hale said. One of them keeps tiles from vibrating against each other during liftoff and has no purpose for re-entry; the other is designed to prevent repeated overheating of a gap between two tiles, but not having it in place during a single re-entry would still be "well within our safety margins," Hale said. NASA probing damaged blanketMeanwhile, engineers are working to determine if another anomaly discovered on the orbiter -- a damaged thermal blanket under one of the cockpit windows -- poses a threat. A photographic analysis of the blanket, which is about 20 inches long and 4 inches wide, showed that it was punctured at one end -- possibly by debris -- and "poufed out" at the other, Hale said Tuesday.  A visible bubble in the thermal blanket near one of the cockpit windows. He said the damage to the blanket doesn't pose a threat of excessive heating or tearing away during re-entry, when Discovery is traveling at a speed in excess of Mach 20, or 20 times the speed of sound. However, once the shuttle slows to below Mach 6, there is concern is that the blanket might tear away and strike the orbiter, he said. NASA experts are analyzing the blanket to determine whether it presents a threat and evaluate possible options -- among them an additional spacewalk to repair the window. On Wednesday, shuttle flight director Paul Hill said NASA engineers were going over high resolution video of the window area and should have a final report by Thursday. "If we get an answer we really don't like from the tests and analysis it would give us an opportunity to go outside and do something about this, although we don't expect that to be a likely outcome," Hill said. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. 
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