Two astronauts scheduled to exit the International Space Station on Thursday will wait until later this year after a coolant leak outside the ISS caused NASA to reschedule the spacewalk.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen are scheduled to take spacewalks this week.
However, after the coolant leak, mission engineers assessed the situation outside the ISS and delayed the spacewalk until later this year.
NASA said a backup radiator on the ISS’s Nauka multipurpose laboratory module began leaking coolant and stopped on October 6, changing the environment around the ISS.
O’Hara and Mogensen are scheduled to collect microorganisms outside the ISS as part of the experiment.
“The date of the spacewalk has been adjusted to allow engineers additional time to complete the coolant leak analysis,” NASA said. “The coolant is not toxic or harmful to the crew, but experts are discussing how best to keep small traces of the material from getting into some internal systems to prevent equipment degradation over time.”
Mission engineers are assessing conditions outside the ISS and delaying the spacewalk until later this year.NASA/Robert Markowitz NASA says a backup radiator on the ISS’s Nauka multipurpose laboratory module began leaking coolant and stopped on Oct. 6, changing the environment around the ISS .NASA Spacewalk this will be the fourth in history with an all-female crew.NASA
The coolant leak also delayed another spacewalk for O’Hara and NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and is now scheduled for Oct. 30.
This would be a rare all-female spacewalker, only the fourth in history.
The first by NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch took place in 2019 after more than 20 years of the ISS operating in low Earth orbit.
O’Hara and Moghbeli will conduct a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk to remove electronic equipment and replace solar array hardware on the exterior of the ISS.
The first all-female spacewalk by a NASA astronaut took place in 2019 with Jessica Meir and Christina Koch.REUTERS
Two Russian cosmonauts are also slated for a spacewalk in October. On October 25, cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will complete maintenance tasks for Roscosmos outside the ISS.
O’Hara and Mogensen will conduct a collection of microorganisms during Spacewalk 90 later this year.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
