Crew mounts experiment on space station

HOUSTON, May 19 (UPI) -- Crews on the shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station have successfully installed a $2 billion, 15,251-pound physics experiment, NASA said.

Attachment of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 cosmic ray detector to the Starboard 3 segment of the ISS was confirmed Thursday, as Endeavour Pilot Greg Johnson and Mission Specialist Greg Chamitoff operated the station's robotic arm to move the detector into place, a NASA release said.

Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori had previously used the shuttle's own robotic arm to take AMS out of the shuttle cargo bay to hand it off to the station arm.

Feustel and Chamitoff are scheduled to begin the first of the mission's four spacewalks about 2:15 a.m. EDT Friday and spent about an hour Thursday morning preparing tools for the spacewalk.

Spacewalk tasks include retrieval of long-duration materials exposure experiments and installation of another, installation of a light on one of the ISS rail line handcarts, preparation for adding ammonia to a cooling loop and installation of an antenna, NASA said.