New set of solar energy panels for space station

Space shuttle Atlantis astronauts on Thursday were setting up a new set of solar arrays on the International Space Station, which will eventually double the orbiting laboratory's power capabilities, NASA said.

The deployment had been delayed by several hours by a glitch in software that controls the arrays' rotation arm. The first pair of array panels were unfurled at 5:26 am (1026 GMT) and the second set were to be deployed about an hour later, said Pat Ryan, a spokesman for the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
On Wednesday, two Atlantis astronauts went on a seven-hour spacewalk, the second of three in their mission, to remove launch restraints on the solar arrays that prevented damage when Atlantis was launched on its 11-day mission on Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The new set of solar arrays, once unfurled, will measure 240 feet wide and will ultimately provide a quarter of the ISS's power once the orbiting laboratory is completed in 2010.
A 16-tonne truss segment with the solar arrays, called P3/P4, was attached to the station Tuesday using a robotic arm, marking the resumption of construction of the ISS for the first time since the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster.