NASA asked its astronauts earlier to spend an extra day in space to inspect the gears controlling the international space station's solar wings. The Discovery shuttle, on its 34th flight, is now scheduled to return to Earth on November 7.
The official NASA Web site said that during the spacewalk "Parazynski inspected the port Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) and found no evidence of any debris. He described the SARJ's race rings as "nice and clean."
NASA announced on Sunday that during a spacewalk astronaut Daniel Tani discovered black particles, believed to be metal shavings, inside a motorized joint controlling one of the wings.
The U.S. agency added that "mission managers want to compare data from this [third] inspection to the data gathered during Sunday's inspection of the starboard SARJ."
The crew of seven is led by Pamela Melroy. Five spacewalks are planned during Discovery's 14-day mission to the ISS.
