Williams, a former resident of Needham, Mass., yesterday joined an elite group of eight other female spacewalkers. Only seven other US women and a Russian woman have participated in the 281 spacewalks made since 1965.
"Welcome to the club, Suni," Curbeam told her.
Earlier, NASA approved conducting a fourth, unplanned spacewalk if astronauts were unable to get the accordion-like array to fold up into a box properly. Curbeam pushed on the box several times, shaking the 115-foot array in an attempt to loosen wire tension.
The extra spacewalk, if carried out tomorrow, would delay space shuttle Discovery's landing at the Kennedy Space Center by a day to Friday, and push back other activities such as undocking and a late inspection of the shuttle's heat shield.
The half-retracted solar wing was part of the space station's temporary power system.
A primary goal of Discovery's visit to the station was to rewire the lab and hook a new set of solar wings delivered in September onto the permanent electricity grid. To do that, NASA needed to retract the old solar panel so that the new ones had room to rotate with the movement of the sun to maximize the electricity generated.
The old solar panel had retracted enough to give the new ones clearance, but it did not fold all the way as NASA wanted.
Curbeam and Williams headed over to the array after completing the main task of their spacewalk.
The astronauts shifted the space station's electrical system to a permanent power source from a temporary one.
About half the lights, a fire alarm, some ventilation ducts, and some communication on the US section of the space station were powered down as a precaution to the spacewalkers, who unhooked and plugged back in connecting hoses to half of the lab's electrical system.
Less than two hours into the spacewalk, the rewired electrical system was powered back up, and Mission Control reported that it was operating without problems.
"It's great to have some good, on-orbit electricians working for us," said astronaut Stephen Robinson at Mission Control.
