NASA cancels spacewalk due to leaking space suits

A spacewalk by two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station ended almost as soon as it began Monday morning when water began leaking from one of the spacesuits into the airlock.

“There’s water everywhere,” said Tracy Dyson, one of the astronauts, at mission control.

That was minutes after she and Mike Barratt, the other astronaut participating in the spacewalk, had changed into their battery-powered spacesuits, marking the start of the spacewalk at 8:46 a.m. ET. Eastern.

“I’ve got arctic blast all over my mask,” said Ms Dyson.

She brushed away a layer of ice, allowing her to see that the ice crystals were coming from a service and cooling umbilical unit connected to her suit. The tethers provide power, oxygen and water while the astronauts are in airlock. The leak started when Mrs Dyson unplugged the unit.

“I could see the ice crystals flowing there,” Ms Dyson said. “Like a snow cone machine, ice was forming on that harbor.”

Space station controllers in Houston then canceled the spacewalk. NASA said the astronauts were never in any danger.

The shortening of the spacewalk was the latest in a series of glitches that NASA has experienced this month. Other issues have included an earlier postponed spacewalk and delays in returning a pair of astronauts to Earth aboard a Boeing space capsule, known as Starliner, which is on its first trip to the space station with astronauts in board.

On Monday, the leak stopped when Ms Dyson reconnected the umbilical cord unit. She and Mr Barratt were back inside the space station and out of their spacesuits 45 minutes later. Although they never swam outside the hatch, they were credited with a 31-minute spacewalk—the time from when the internal batteries were fired to when the airlock was pressed.

They were scheduled to spend six and a half hours out. Their main tasks were to remove a malfunctioning electronics box from a communications antenna and collect samples from the outside of the space station as part of scientific research to see if microorganisms could survive the harsh, airless environment and damaged by space radiation.

For Ms Dyson, it was the second aborted spacewalk this month. She and Matthew Dominick, another NASA astronaut currently on the space station, were scheduled to perform the spacewalk on June 13, but that was postponed when Mr. Dominick reported a “spacesuit concern issue”.

NASA did not provide additional details about what happened, and Mr. Barratt then replaced Mr. Dominick, who was already scheduled to participate in a subsequent spacewalk. “We had a suit ready for him,” Dana Weigel, NASA’s space station program manager, said at a June 18 press conference. “We decided it just made sense to go ahead and use Tracy and Mike.”

NASA has another spacewalk planned for July 2, but those plans may now change.

The spacesuits currently worn by NASA astronauts for spacewalks are more than four decades old, dating back to the dawn of the space shuttle era. The space agency has hired Collins Aerospace to provide replacements for use on the space station. (Another company, Axiom Space, is developing spacesuits for NASA astronauts to wear when they walk on the moon.)

Malfunctions of actual spacesuits are rare but potentially terrifying. In 2013, Luca Parmitano, an astronaut with the European Space Agency, nearly drowned when water pooled in his helmet after a ventilator pump became blocked. Monday’s problem involved another part of the costume.

NASA managers are also still working to understand the problems experienced by Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Carrying two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the Starliner successfully docked with the space station on June 6. The mission is part of a shakeout flight of the spacecraft, and the Starliner’s propulsion system has undergone five leaks of helium, which is used to propel propellants for the thrusters. Some of the thrusters also malfunctioned as the Starliner made its docking approach.

Boeing and NASA engineers believe the helium leaks are minor and will not pose a serious problem during the return trip. All but one of the thrusters now appear to be working properly after brief test firings a week ago.

However, NASA managers also decided to spend more time reviewing the data and have pushed back to an earlier date in July. The Starliner spacecraft has been approved for a 45-day docking with the space station, or until July 21. The mission was originally planned to last only eight days, and Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams have now been on the space station for 18 days.