The story

Spacewalking astronauts doing construction work Sunday outside the international space station made a disturbing discovery: what appear to be metal shavings inside a joint that is needed to turn a set of solar power panels.

The rotary joint, 10 feet in diameter, has experienced intermittent vibrations and power spikes for nearly two months. Space station managers were hoping a thermal cover or bolt might be hanging up the mechanism. That would have been relatively easy to fix, so they were disheartened when Daniel Tani radioed down that metal shavings were everywhere.

"It's quite clear that it's metal-to-metal grating or something, and it's widespread," Tani said. Read full article »

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