International Space Station to renew spacewalks, six months after incident

NASA has greenlit spacewalks exterior of the International Space Station after a flight readiness evaluation. Spacewalks have been suspended for practically seven months since March 23 when a small quantity of water was present in ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer’s helmet.

“Crew safety is the top priority of NASA and our international partners. I’m proud of the space station and ground teams’ work to keep our crew members safe, for taking the time necessary to close out the investigation, and for continually findings ways to mitigate risks in human spaceflight,” mentioned Kathryn Lueders, affiliate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, in a press assertion.

After Maurer’s spacewalk months in the past, the crew on the area station instantly eliminated his helmet and labored with NASA’s floor assist workforce to collect information on the problem. The American area company categorised the occasion as an in depth name and declared a cease to all pending spacewalks.

Samples of the water and among the {hardware} in Maurer’s go well with have been despatched again to Earth with the Russian Soyuz 65S and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission. The complete spacesuit was then returned with the SpaceX CRS-25 mission for detailed evaluation.

What did the investigation reveal?

After finishing an in depth take a look at and teardown of the area go well with, and evaluating the water samples and go well with {hardware} to see what occurred, NASA groups confirmed that there have been no {hardware} failures with the go well with.

According to the area company, it’s probably that the surplus water within the spacesuit was fashioned by condensation because of the built-in methods performing a number of settings for crew exertion and crew cooling on the similar time.

Along with updating operational procedures, area station groups have developed new mitigation {hardware} to cut back the chance of such condensation resulting in water accumulation, whereas additionally absorbing any water if it seems. NASA’s administration groups accepted the return to regular operations after the brand new operational procedures and mitigation {hardware} was added.