NASA Nixes Spacewalk After Spacesuit Springs A Leak Squirting Water Everywhere
Dyson and fellow NASA astronaut Mike Baratt were well on their way to performing a scheduled spacewalk on Monday before Dyson’s spacesuit began leaking water. The two astronauts had set their suits to battery power, and opened the International Space Station’s Quest airlock hatch to the vacuum of space before Dyson reported the problem to NASA remarking, “There’s water everywhere.”
NASA called off the spacewalk because of the water leak in the cooling unit of Dyson’s spacesuit and had the two astronauts return inside the space station. The cooling unit in question keeps astronauts spacesuit at a comfortable temperature during a spacewalk. Dyson told ground control that she was worried that the water leak may have affected electrical connectors.
Dyson explained, “There’s still water shooting out. We can assume that water got into that connector, electrical connector.”
The spacewalk only lasted 31 minutes before the two astronauts had their spacesuits repressurized in the crew lock section of the airlock. Once the suits were repressurized, the astronauts removed their spacesuits. Baratt later began troubleshooting Dyson’s spacesuit, while also inspecting the suit’s components.
This was the second spacewalk to be aborted in recent days, with another also being cancelled because of a spacesuit issue. The prior incident involved astronaut Matthew Dominick, who reported that he was experiencing “a spacesuit discomfort issue.”
The spacesuit leak adds to the issues NASA is currently working to remedy in regard to astronauts on the International Space Station. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are currently stuck on the space station as NASA tries to remedy issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft so the two can return to Earth.
