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Kerwin went outside through a small side hatch in the airlock module.
Skylab was just about to enter the earth's shadow, and the astronauts had to begin their work illuminated only by lights in the hatch area. After they assembled five sections of tubing into a 25-ft.-long extension pole and attached it to a 2-ft.-long cutting tool similar to pruning shears, they untangled the long, snaking umbilical cords that provided them with oxygen and a communications link to Skylab and Mission Control. Then, as the sun reappeared, they began to make their way through the maze of trusses on Skylab's telescope mount, circled part way around the outside of the cylindrical airlock module and finally arrived within pole's reach of the jammed solar wing.
Working in the weightless environment proved difficult and strenuous; Kerwin's pulse went up as high as 150 beats a minute. "Take it easy," advised Space Veteran Conrad,* whose own heartbeat rose only to 110. While Conrad held the rope to the cutters, Kerwin tried to direct the pole so that the blades hooked around the aluminum strip. "I can't stabilize myself," he complained as he failed again and again. "I just can't do it." Finally, just as the spacecraft was about to make another pass into darkness—which would have forced the astronauts to halt their work because the illumination from the hatch area did not reach the solar wing—the cutter moved into place.
By then Skylab had passed out of range of ground listening posts, and the astronauts toiled for more than an hour in radio silence. It was only when Skylab moved back within range of NASA'S big dish antenna in California's Mojave Desert that Mission Control learned the results. "We got the wing out and locked," reported Conrad. With a tug from the astronauts, the solar wing had swung out perpendicular to the ship and its accordion-like silicon panels were unfolding. However, hydraulic fluid in the panels' spring mechanism had stiffened in the extreme cold, and the panels only partially came out. Yet by week's end the warming rays had thawed the fluid. The panels extended fully, and the eight previously idle batteries began charging up.
Meanwhile, Conrad described to Mission Control exactly why the crucial solar wing had been jammed. The strip of aluminum that obstructed it had been held in place by a single 3/16-in. bolt that had penetrated the solar wing when the shield was ripped off. "One lousy, single bolt," said Conrad incredulously. "Everything else was free."
*Who last week broke the record for total time in space, exceeding Jim Lovell's 715 hr. 5 min.