STS-49 Mission Control Status Report 20

                         MISSION CONTROL STATUS
                        STS-49 Status Report #20

May 14, 1992, 11 p.m. Thursday CDT

Endeavour astronaut Kathy Thornton set a new standard for space walking
women today as she and Tom Akers worked outside their space ship to
test and evaluate procedures that could apply to the assembly of the
Space Station Freedom within the next five years.  The unprecedented
fourth "EVA" of the mission lasted 7 hours and 45 minutes - the second
longest American space walk and more than twice as long as the 1984
walks of U.S. astronaut Kathy Sullivan and Russian cosmonaut Svetlana
Savitskaya - the only other women to have ever walked in space.

Akers and Thornton completed a pyramid-shaped structure intended to
emulate a Space Station truss and then docked it to a pallet on the end
of Endeavour's robot arm - simulating the installation of crew module
nodes to station truss structures.

One of the key elements of the evaluations was to quantify the
logistics, workload, and timing of specific assembly sequences.  The
progress of the demonstrations was slower than the timelines developed
on the ground and based on underwater training, pointing to the real
need for the evaluation of assembly concepts in orbit before Space
Station Freedom construction begins.

Earlier today, the Intelsat control team fired the perigee kick motor
which was installed on their satellite by Endeavour spacewalkers Pierre
Thuot and Rick Hieb.  The firing was successful, and the Intelsat VI
satellite in excellent health.

The Endeavour crew will start their sleep shift tonight at 1:40 am
central time and will be awakened at 9:40 am Friday morning.  Friday's
activities will consist, primarily, of preparations for a landing at
Edwards Air Force Base in California on Saturday at 3:57 pm central
time.  In addition, a crew press conference is planned for Friday
afternoon at 3:17 pm central time.