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NASA has introduced it’s suspending non-emergency spacewalks aboard the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) whereas it investigates what triggered water to leak into an astronaut’s helmet throughout a stroll in March.
“Till we perceive higher what the causal components may need been over the past [spacewalk] with our [spacesuits], we’re no-go for nominal [spacewalks],” Dana Weigel, deputy supervisor of the ISS program, mentioned this week.
Weigel added that it was vital for NASA to “deal with and rule out main system failure modes” concerning the current incident.
The spacewalk in query — performed by NASA astronaut Raja Chari and European Area Company astronaut Matthias Maurer — occurred outdoors the ISS on March 23. As soon as Maurer was again contained in the station’s airlock on the finish of the seven-hour tour, water was discovered to be pooling inside Maurer’s helmet. An preliminary investigation revealed that as much as 50% of the visor had been coated in water, with extra present in an absorption pad on the rear of his area helmet.
Maurer’s case wasn’t thought of an emergency scenario on the time, but it surely had alarming echoes of a extra severe, life-threatening episode on the area station in 2013. And for that motive, NASA is just not taking any probabilities.
It concerned Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who got here near drowning throughout a spacewalk when his helmet started to absorb water.
Parmitano later mentioned that whereas working outdoors the station, blobs of water started to get into his nostril, mouth, and eyes, hindering his potential to obviously view his environment. However most regarding of all, the buildup of liquid started to adversely affect his respiratory.
Regardless of poor imaginative and prescient and respiratory issues, Parmitano remained calm and thoroughly made his means again to the airlock and security. In his case, the problem was put right down to a contaminated fan pump contained in the spacesuit.
Such incidents throughout spacewalks are fortunately uncommon, and up to now no astronaut has died or been badly injured throughout a number of hundred excursions outdoors the station because it went into operation greater than twenty years in the past.
For extra on spacewalks, take a look at this superior gallery photographs displaying astronauts working in area over time.
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