STS-120's third spacewalk is completed

HOUSTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. astronauts Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock Tuesday completed the third spacewalk of space shuttle Discovery's STS-120 mission.

The 7-hour, 8-minute spacewalk included installation of another truss and its solar arrays to the still-under-construction International Space Station, as well as an inspection of the port solar alpha rotary joint. National Aeronautics and Space Administration controllers in Houston want to compare data from the inspection to data gathered during Sunday’s inspection of the starboard SARJ, where vibrations and other abnormalities have been observed.

Parazynski and Wheelock also installed a switching unit outside the space station's Destiny laboratory.

Space station crew member Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency coordinated the spacewalk, while ISS crew members Stephanie Wilson and Dan Tani operated the station's robotic arm.

Controllers have re-planned the fourth spacewalk of the mission and extended the STS-120 mission by one day. That will allow more detailed inspections, which caused a postponement of the test of a shuttle tile repair tool.

Tuesday's spacewalk was the third for Parazynski and the second for Wheelock during the current mission.