Tag: ISS

This news report, confirmed by no other source, claims that the spacewalk this week was cut short because of water in the astronauts’ spacesuits.

8:43 am

This news report, confirmed by no other source, claims that the spacewalk this week was cut short because of water in the astronauts’ spacesuits.

I report this story but am very puzzled. If a water leak was the cause of the shortened spacewalks, I would have expected others to report that fact as well. No one has, however. (See this nasaspaceflight.com article, for example, which outlines the entire engineering situation quite thoroughly but says “both suits performed well during the EVA.”) Moreover, the ABC particular story above is written by someone who is not a space reporter, and contains some incongruities that reflect that, making me even more skeptical.

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Yesterday’s spacewalk on ISS, though successful, was cut short because of spacesuit discomfort issues unrelated to the earlier water leak problems.

9:11 am

Yesterday’s spacewalk on ISS, though successful, was cut short because of spacesuit discomfort issues unrelated to the earlier water leak problems.

No story on the spacewalk is entirely clear on the issues. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio was cold, but it seems he also had other problems that have not been outlined clearly. Interestingly he was not using the spacesuit that flooded in July. Michael Hopkins was using that suit and apparently had no problems.

In order to resize the spare suit on the station for Mastracchio they have delayed the next spacesuit for one day.

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NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

3:12 pm

NASA engineers have decided to go ahead with a series of spacewalks to repair the ISS cooling system, thereby delaying the Cygnus cargo mission until January.

The EVAs will take place on December 21, 23 and 25 followed by a Russian Spacewalk on the 27th and a Beta-Angle Cut-out beginning on December 29. That means that the earliest launch opportunity for Cygnus is January 9, 2014 (local time) – pending the successful execution of the contingency EVAs.

Update: The Orbital Sciences press announcement says their launch can happen no earlier than January 13.

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It appears that NASA is planning to go ahead with at least one spacewalk to replace ISS’s faulty coolant system pump.

10:40 am

It appears that NASA is planning to go ahead with at least one spacewalk to replace ISS’s faulty coolant system pump.

After attempts from the inside to restart the malfunctioning cooling loop on the International Space Station failed last night, NASA mission managers have decided a spacewalk will be required to fix the problem, a source privy to NASA operations told TV20 News. NASA mission managers have scheduled the first spacewalk for Dec. 19th, according to the source, with two other spacewalks, also known as EVAs, likely to follow a few days after.

This story is not yet confirmed, but this AP article suggests it might be true.

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The coolant systems failure on ISS might delay next week’s Cygnus cargo mission.

5:50 pm

The coolant systems failure on ISS might delay next week’s Cygnus cargo mission.

[T]he reduced cooling capability means there’s less of a safety margin on the station. Todd said mission managers don’t want to risk having the Cygnus come in for a hookup under such conditions. “While we’re sitting at one loop, we’re somewhat vulnerable,” he said.

The logic here escapes me. It suggests they will stop all cargo missions to ISS until the coolant problem is solved. However, what if they can’t solve it without a spacewalk? To do that spacewalk they have to deliver an upgraded spacesuit to the station to replace the suit that had water leak problems in July, and that delivery is not scheduled until late February when the next Dragon cargo launch is scheduled.

Maybe they are considering putting that replacement suit on the Cygnus capsule so it can arrive quickly. If so, that would justify delaying the Cygnus launch for a few days.

More details about the situation here.

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If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

8:35 am

If a US spacewalk on ISS is necessary to repair its cooling system, the spare parts are there, but the spacesuits are not.

Prior to retiring the shuttle NASA, aware that cargo supply would be limited once the shuttle was gone, shipped up to the station as many spare parts as possible. Thus, there are three spare pump modules on ISS that could be installed during a spacewalk to replace the module that has the valve problem.

However, because of the water leak problem that occurred in one American spacesuit during a July spacewalk, NASA has halted all American spacewalks until replacement suits can be shipped up to the station.

Since then, NASA has been conducting extensive investigations into the water leak issue, with… “the crew performed a series of tests on EMU 3011 [the faulty spacesuit] as part of an ongoing effort for returning the suit back to service. The tests included water leak checks, communication checks, and suit pressure leak checks. EMU 3011 passed all tests.”

However, NASA had been planning to wait to return another EMU, serial number 3015, to Earth aboard a SpaceX Dragon vehicle and deliver a new EMU in its place before clearing EVAs to resume. However the next Dragon vehicle is not scheduled to arrive at the ISS until at least late February next year.

The Russians might be able to do this spacewalk, but they are going to demand payment for the work. And they won’t come cheap, considering the circumstances.

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