Discovery closes without completing final spacewalk task

Space Shuttle Discovery astronauts completed their third and final departure into space, where for more than seven hours installing new equipment on the International Space Station (ISS), but unable to complete all the required connections.

The American Danny Olivas and Swede Christer Fuglesang, European Space Agency (ESA) launched the maneuver at 20H39 GMT on Saturday and returned to the ship on Sunday at 03H40 GMT, NASA said.

In the third and final spacewalk of the shuttle mission, they took more than seven hours to comply with various planned maintenance, the astronauts completed their main objectives but not all.

"During the connection of one of two groups of wires in the avionics of Node 3, could not plug one of the connectors," NASA said. "They wrapped the cable and connector in a sleeve to protect them," he added.

In the two previous outings, the astronauts replaced with another tank of ammonia, which "works great" as the U.S. space agency. Ammonia serves as a coolant for avionics systems of the ISS.

The tank that withdrew was located in the cellar to bring Discovery back to Earth.

The shuttle lifted off from Florida (Southeast U.S.) on August 28 and docked to the ISS on Monday. In the nine-day mission, the seven astronauts of the Discovery crew brought the Leonardo container delivered by the Italian Space Agency with 6.9 tons of equipment that delivered six colleagues in the ISS.

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