NASA is planning extensive spacewalking repairs at the International Space Station as a result of a cooling system failure this weekend that forced astronauts to power down laboratory systems.U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson will venture outside on a pair of spacewalks to replace a faulty coolant system pump – a tricky job that entails disconnecting and reconnecting electrical cables and ammonia coolant lines.
The first excursion could come as early as Thursday and the second would come a few days later. NASA managers approved a preliminary plan for the repair work Sunday.
While significant, the pump failure did not put the six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the international outpost in any danger. All critical life support systems remained powered up.
“The crew is not in any danger and is monitoring systems and relaxing on an otherwise off-duty day,” NASA said.
Wheelock and Caldwell-Dyson had planned to perform a spacewalk Thursday to install a power extension cable that will link the U.S. Unity module to a storage module to be hauled up on Discovery in November. The two also were going to install a grapple fixture that will route power and date from the Russian Zarya module to station robotic manipulators.
Check out the details in the Monday print editions of Florida Today. And then live here in The Flame Trench, you can watch a NASA news briefing on the situation beginning at 4 p.m. Monday. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and live coverage.
1 comment:
It sounds like without the Shuttle to carry equipment to the ISS that it will be down for the count in a year or two after the last mission. No need for space X or the Russians.
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