A scheduled spacewalk outdoors of the Worldwide House Station was aborted on Friday (Nov. 25), after an issue was found with one of many two Russian cosmonauts’ spacesuits.
Expedition 68 commander Sergey Prokopyev and flight engineer Dmitry Petelin, each of the Russian federal space company Roscosmos, had not but entered the airlock to start what had been deliberate as a six-hour, 40-minute extravehicular exercise (EVA), when Prokopyev reported a problem with the cooling system in his Orlan spacesuit.
“The 2 cosmonauts had spent a number of hours suiting up for the spacewalk. That they had gotten to the purpose of their timeline for pre-spacewalk preparations the place they have been going to do methods checks after which climb contained in the airlock to depressurize and open up the hatch,” mentioned NASA public affairs officer Rob Navias, who was to supply commentary on the spacewalk from the Mission Management Middle on the U.S. company’s Johnson House Middle in Houston.
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“Prokopyev reported {that a} backup pump, certainly one of two redundant pumps for the air flow unit in his go well with, was not working correctly, not offering the correct cooling for his go well with,” mentioned Navias on NASA TV.
To troubleshoot the problem, each cosmonauts obtained out of their spacesuits to disconnect after which reconnect the cables that join the air flow unit to their liquid cooling clothes. They then donned their spacesuits once more and examined the pumps.
“The first pump on Prokopyev’s go well with was working usually, however the backup pump wouldn’t,” mentioned Navias. “Consequently, Russian flight controllers in Korolyov, the Russian Mission Management Middle, determined to name off in the present day’s spacewalk.”
The abort will now delay the relocation of a heat-dispelling radiator and a distinct airlock from their mount on the Rassvet mini-research module to a more moderen element on Russian section of the space station, the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Each the radiator and the airlock had been launched 12 years in the past with Rassvet aboard the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis as a part of the STS-132 mission.
In preparation for Friday’s spacewalk, the European robotic arm mounted on Nauka had been prolonged and had grabbed maintain of the radiator to be moved. Work is now underway to re-stow the arm till it’s subsequent wanted. Cosmonaut Anna Kikina had been tasked with working the arm from a management station contained in the space station in the course of the spacewalk.
The postponed EVA was the second spacewalk in a deliberate collection to help the {hardware} strikes. Prokopyev and Petelin beforehand performed an EVA together on Nov. 17, throughout which they ready the radiator for its relocation and put in a mounting system for the airlock.
It isn’t but recognized when the aborted spacewalk might be rescheduled, given different actions on the space station. Two U.S. spacewalks are deliberate for Dec. 3 and Dec. 19 to put in new solar arrays on the U.S. working section of the space station. A SpaceX cargo spacecraft can be anticipated to reach on the station on Sunday (Nov. 27), the day after its scheduled launch from NASA’s Kennedy House Middle in Florida.
In the present day’s incident was the second spacesuit downside that cosmonauts have skilled up to now few months. A Russian spacewalk on Aug. 17 was cut short after Oleg Artemyev reported a voltage fluctuation within the battery energy for his go well with.
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