Astronauts aim for tight deadline

Flight Engineer Tani and his colleagues may miss Thanksgiving

Astronauts are pushing hard to fit out a new compartment on the International Space Station, and to keep the next shuttle launch on track, Nasa says.

Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani have carried out a seven-hour spacewalk wiring up and plumbing in the Harmony section recently added to the ISS.

During Tuesday's spacewalk they started hooking up power, heating and cooling lines to make Harmony habitable.

A 6 December launch date means the crew may have to work through Thanksgiving.

The US holiday falls this Thursday, 22 November.

"With this particular crew on board, I don't know if holidays mean anything to them. They are just a hard-charging, get-it-done crew," said Kenny Todd, a space station manager.

"We'll have to make sure they understand that it's Thanksgiving, and take some time and take a breath."

Delicate operation

Nasa is due to launch the Atlantis shuttle on 6 December, but the Harmony section must be fully operational first.

Atlantis will carry the Columbus laboratory, meant to dock with Harmony. Columbus represents Europe's biggest single contribution to the ISS project.

The three residents of the space station have been working flat out since the last shuttle, Discovery, departed two weeks ago.

Cmdr Whitson and Flight Engineer Tani began their spacewalk, 210 miles (330km) above Earth, at 1010 GMT on Tuesday.

They carried an 18ft (5.5m) tray gingerly along the outside of the space station, containing the fluid lines for Harmony.

This was their second spacewalk and they are due to carry out another later in the week to complete the installation of the pipes.

The crew of Atlantis, who are in training ahead of their mission, were optimistic that they would be able to fly on time.

"So far we are looking right on schedule for December 6," mission Commander Stephen Frick said on Monday.