Floating in the International Space Station’s Quest airlock module, astronauts Tracy Dyson and Mike Barratt were preparing to head outside Monday to finish a spacewalk that was called off June 13 when Dyson reported a significant water leak from her spacesuit’s cooling system, saying “there’s literally water everywhere.”
The leakage happened right after the crew switched their spacesuits to battery power to officially kick off the planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk. Flight controllers quickly told the astronauts to reconfigure their spacesuit umbilicals, which stopped the leak. The spacewalk then was called off.
NASA
“Oh, my goodness,” Dyson said when she noticed the water spewing out.
“Oh, wow,” Barratt agreed.
“Water is flowing out of my SCU (service and cooling umbilical), guys,” Dyson told flight controllers. The umbilical supplies cooling water, oxygen and electrical power until the crew member disconnects and exits the airlock.
“There’s a lot of water flowing,” Dyson said, a moment later adding “there’s literally water everywhere. … I’ve got ice all over my helmet.”
The umbilicals were reconfigured and the leakage stopped. After closing the airlock’s outer hatch, the compartment was repressurized so the spacewalkers could make their way back into the station.
It was the second spacewalk in a row to be called off before the astronauts could exit the airlock.
Dyson and astronaut Matthew Dominick originally planned to carry out the same excursion on June 13, but the spacewalk was called off after Dominick reported a suit “discomfort issue.” No details were provided.
NASA
Dyson and Barratt were already penciled in for a second spacewalk, or EVA, and NASA managers decided to keep that same lineup for Monday’s do-over.
The goals of the outing were to retrieve a malfunctioning radio transmitter and antenna package, known as the radio frequency group, or RFG, that defied two earlier attempts to unclamp it from a storage platform.
Dyson also planned to wipe down several targeted areas near the station’s U.S. airlock and a few vents in a bid to collect samples of any micro-organisms that might have managed to survive in the extreme temperatures, radiation and vacuum of open space.
If researchers find any such organisms after the samples are returned to Earth it will help engineers devise ways to prevent similar earthly bio-contamination on Mars during future missions to the red planet.
Had the spacewalk gone well, NASA planned to stage another EVA on July 2. It’s not yet known how the water leak issue might affect the spacewalk schedule or what will need to be done to correct the problem.
