Astronaut David Low is pictured here hovering in space over the cargo bay of
NASA鈥檚 shuttle, Endeavour, during a mission last month to recover the
4.5-tonne Eureca satellite. Low鈥檚 foot is tethered to the shuttle鈥檚 鈥榬obot鈥�
arm, a device for manoeuvring objects in space. The 鈥榠gloo鈥� behind him is
the rear, left-hand flank of the shuttle.
Endeavour鈥檚 crew of five successfully retrieved the satellite despite
technical problems with Eureca鈥檚 antennas. Staff at the European Space
Agency, which owns Eureca, were unable to retract the antennas from the
ground, so Low and colleagues had to do it by hand. 鈥楾hey had to grab the
satellite, fold it up and put it in the cargo bay, but had more
complications than expected,鈥� said a spokeswowan at ESA.
