NASA Space suit issue prompts delay of second spacewalk

In this image made from video provided by NASA, astronaut Rick Mastracchio performs a space walk outside the International Space Station on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. 

Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins ventured out of the station to try to revive a crippled cooling line. 

AP Photo/NASA

Astronauts removed an old space station pump Saturday, sailing through the first of a series of urgent repair spacewalks to revive a crippled cooling line.

The two Americans on the crew, Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins, successfully pulled out the ammonia pump with a bad valve—well ahead of schedule.

That task had been planned for the next spacewalk, originally scheduled for Monday but now delayed until Tuesday, Christmas Eve, because of the need for a suit swap.

"An early Christmas," observed Mission Control as Mastracchio tugged the refrigerator-size pump away from its nesting spot.

If Mastracchio and Hopkins keep up the quick work, two spacewalks may be enough to complete the installation of a spare pump and a third spacewalk will not be needed as originally anticipated.

Several hours after Saturday's spacewalk ended, Mission Control bumped spacewalk 2 to Tuesday to give Mastracchio enough time to prepare a spare suit.

His original suit was compromised when he inadvertently turned on a water switch in the air lock at the end of Saturday's excursion.

NASA officials said Saturday night that it's unclear whether a third spacewalk will be needed and when it might occur, if required.

A third spacewalk had been slated for Christmas Day before the latest turn of events. NASA requires a day off between spacewalks for astronaut rest.

The space station breakdown 10 days earlier left one of two identical cooling loops too cold and forced the astronauts to turn off all nonessential equipment inside the orbiting lab, bringing scientific research to a near-halt and leaving the station in a vulnerable state.

Mission Control wanted to keep the spacewalkers out even longer Saturday to get even further ahead, but a cold and uncomfortable Mastracchio requested to go back.

The spacewalk ended after 5½ hours, an hour short on time but satisfyingly long on content.

Earlier, Mastracchio managed to unhook all the ammonia fluid and electrical lines on the pump with relative ease, occasionally releasing a flurry of frozen ammonia flakes that brushed against his suit.

A small O-ring floated away, but he managed to retrieve it.

"I got it, I got it, I got it. Barely," Mastracchio said as he stretched out his hand.

"Don't let that go, that's a stocking stuffer," Mission Control replied.

"Don't tell my wife," Mastracchio said, chuckling, as he put it in a small pouch for trash.

Mastracchio, a seven-time spacewalker, and Hopkins, making his first, wore extra safety gear as they worked outside.

NASA wanted to prevent a recurrence of the helmet flooding that nearly drowned Luca Parmitano, an ESA Italian astronaut last summer, so Saturday's spacewalkers had snorkels in their suits and water-absorbent pads in their helmets.

To everyone's relief, the spacewalkers remained dry while outside. But midway through the excursion, Mastracchio's toes were so cold that he had to crank up the heat in his boots.

Mission Control worried aloud whether it was wise to extend the spacewalk to get ahead, given Mastracchio's discomfort.

Not quite two hours later, Mastracchio had enough as he clutched the old pump.

When Mission Control suggested even more get-ahead chores, he replied, "I'd like to stow this old module and kind of clean up and call it a day."

He said a couple of things were bothering him, not just temperature, and declined to elaborate when asked by Mission Control what was wrong.

Flight controllers obliged him. Once the old pump was secured to a temporary location, the spacewalkers started gathering up their tools to go in.

Adding to the excitement 260 miles (418 kilometers) up, a smoke alarm went off in the space station as the astronauts toiled outside. It was quickly found to be a false alarm.

The pump replacement is a huge undertaking attempted only once before, back in 2010 on this very unit.

The two astronauts who tackled the job three years ago were in Mission Control, offering guidance.

Mastracchio promised to bring back a wire tie installed on the pump by the previous spacewalkers. "Oh, awesome, thanks Rick," replied the astronaut in Mission Control who put it on.

The 780-pound (354-kilogram) pump is about the size of a double-door refrigerator and extremely cumbersome to handle, with plumbing full of toxic ammonia.

Any traces of ammonia on the spacesuits were dissipated before the astronauts went back inside, to avoid further contamination.

NASA's plan initially called for the pump to be disconnected in the first spacewalk, pulled out on the second spacewalk and a fresh spare put in, and then all the hookups of the new pump completed in the third outing.

NASA rigs up snorkel in ISS spacesuit after risky water leak

Michael Hopkins

US astronaut Michael Hopkins waves on September 26, 2013 before the launch of a Soyuz-FG rocket at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan 

Snorkels in space? 

NASA dreamed up the idea as a quick fix to a dangerous spacesuit problem so astronauts can step out to repair an equipment breakdown at the International Space Station.

One of the two US astronauts preparing to embark on a series of spacewalks later this week and next will be wearing an American-made suit that had a helmet leak in July, nearly drowning the European astronaut who wore it.

The three emergency spacewalks are planned for December 21, 23 and 25 in order to fix a broken cooling system at the orbiting outpost.

Luca Parmitano

An investigation into the cause of the leak that flooded ESA's Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet and forced him to rush back inside the station in July is still ongoing, NASA officials told reporters Wednesday.

Therefore, faced with an unexpected valve failure last week in the system that regulates the temperature of equipment aboard the 15-year-old orbiting outpost, NASA engineers had to scramble to figure out a way to make the US spacesuits safe for use.

First off, they have replaced the water pump system in the suit Parmitano wore.

In addition, an extra helmet absorption pad has been installed at the inside back of the helmet to soak up any potential leak, and a snorkel has been rigged up to offer another breathing route if needed.

"Some smart engineers on the ground were able to figure out, 'Hey this is a similar diameter to a snorkel that you have for scuba diving,'" said NASA lead spacewalk officer Allison Bolinger.

"By just sacrificing one of our spares on board they were able to come up with a way to just snip off the ends and then file it so it is not rough in the crew member's mouth and then apply Velcro."

Rick Mastracchio

American astronaut Mike Hopkins will be wearing the suit Parmitano wore. Both he and fellow US astronaut Rick Mastracchio will have the new snorkels and pads inside their spacesuits as a safety measure.

Their task is to remove the pump module with the faulty valve and replace it with a spare pump that was already aboard the ISS.

Even though the formal investigation into the leaking helmet has not been completed, NASA officials said they were confident that their back-up solutions would allow the astronauts to be safe on their risky outings.

ISS Astronauts: Work continues to resolve Cooling Loop Issues for Cygnus arrival

Flight Engineer Doug Wheelock worked outside the International Space Station in August 2010 to install a spare pump module.

NASA engineers continued efforts Sunday to regulate temperatures in one of two cooling loops on the International Space Station affected by the malfunction last week of a flow control valve in a cooling pump on the station’s starboard truss.

A Flow Control Valve in the starboard Pump Module that enables the flow of ammonia to cool station systems stopped positioning itself properly last Wednesday, resulting in a drop of temperature in Cooling Loop A.

That necessitated the shutdown of some support systems on the station. The temperature must be warm enough in the cooling lines to allow the system’s heat exchangers to dissipate excess heat from the station through the external radiators on the complex.

The primary heat rejection capability for station systems shifted last week to Cooling Loop B that uses a fully operational Pump Module on the port truss.

Efforts overnight to fine-tune the position of an isolation valve associated with the flow control system in the Pump Module into a “sweet spot” to assist the faulty Flow Control Valve in regulating the affected cooling loop’s temperatures were still being evaluated as engineers continue to review the data, valve positioning techniques and additional methods of temperature management in the loop.

Meanwhile, parallel work is ongoing to either enable Orbital Sciences Corp. to launch its Antares rocket and the Cygnus cargo craft from the Wallops Flight Facility, Va. on its first resupply mission to the space station, or for Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins to mount a suite of spacewalks beginning Thursday to replace the faulty pump.

The International Space Station Program continues to keep both options on the table pending further engineering analysis and troubleshooting efforts on the station’s cooling system.

While the engineering work on the station’s cooling loop continued, technicians at Wallops prepared to load time-critical science cargo in the Cygnus spacecraft Sunday afternoon to preserve several days of launch opportunities beginning Thursday night.

The current schedule calls for the vehicle fairing to be installed on the Antares upper stage around Cygnus on Monday.

The Antares rocket and attached Cygnus are scheduled to rollout to the launch pad at Wallops in the wee hours Tuesday.

Meanwhile, aboard the space station, Mastracchio and Hopkins continued to prepare their spacesuits and other equipment in the Quest airlock Sunday should they be called upon to conduct spacewalks to replace the Pump Module.

ISS Expedition 37 Crew members in Kibo lab

Expedition 37 crew members pose for an inflight crew portrait in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. 

Pictured (clockwise from lower left) are Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, commander; Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryazanskiy, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, all flight engineers.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano has been on board the ISS since May 2013. Read more about the Volare Mission in his blog: blogs.esa.int/luca-parmitano

ISS Crew Change: Soyuz reaches International Space Station in under six hours

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new Expedition 37 crew members is seen approaching the International Space Station on Sept. 25, 2013. 

The Soyuz ferried American astronaut Mike Hopkins and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy to the space station.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts linked up with the International Space Station late Wednesday (Sept. 25), doubling the orbiting lab's crew size after an express trip to orbit.

A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut arrived at the station at 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 GMT Thursday), less than six hours after launching into space from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan.

The two spacecraft were sailing 261 miles (420 kilometers) over the southern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Peru, during their rendezvous.

The hatches between the two spacecraft are slated to open at 12:25 a.m. (0425 GMT) Thursday, at which point cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA's Michael Hopkins can join the three crew members of the current Expedition 37 already aboard the $100 billion orbiting lab.