If you think it’s warm on Earth, imagine how it could be in space if the a/c failed.
The crew on board the international space station will make an unscheduled space walk today to attempt to fix a broken cooling system. The system is one of two for the space station and its going off-line has forced the crew to cut back on power usage since last weekend, reports the Associated Press.
U.S. astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson will venture outside on a pair of spacewalks to replace a faulty coolant system pump — a tricky job that entails disconnecting and reconnecting electrical cables and ammonia coolant lines.
The first excursion could come as early as Thursday and the second would come a few days later. NASA managers approved a preliminary plan for the repair work Sunday.
Although significant, the pump failure did not put the six astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the international outpost in any danger. All critical life support systems remained powered up.
“The crew is not in any danger and is monitoring systems and relaxing on an otherwise off-duty day,” NASA reported in a website update.
NASA is not certain what caused the failure, which tripped circuit breakers and sounded alarms throughout the outpost, waking the crew. A subsequent attempt to resuscitate the pump failed, triggering the station’s caution-and-warning system a second time.
The station’s cooling system is designed to route ammonia through 40-foot-long radiators to dissipate heat generated by the operation of the outpost’s myriad systems.
It includes prime and back-up ammonia pumps housed within 780-pound modules on the station’s central truss — a metallic backbone that stretches 335 feet from end to end.
Two spare pumps are mounted on stowage platforms on the truss.
Plans call for Wheelock and Caldwell-Dyson to remove and replace the module with the faulty pump on the first spacewalk. The two will connect the spare with electrical cables and ammonia coolant lines on the second outing.
Wheelock and Caldwell-Dyson already had planned to perform a spacewalk Thursday to install a power extension cable that will link the U.S. Unity module with a storage module to be hauled up aboard shuttle Discovery in November.
The two also planned to install a grapple fixture that would allow power and data to flow between the Russian Zarya module and station robotic arms.
All that work is being deferred to a later date.
The crew of the 24th expedition to the station is made up of three Americans, including NASA astronaut Shannon Walker, and three Russians: Alexander Skvortsov, Mikhail Kornienko and Fyodor Yurchikhin.
The station has been staffed around the clock since the arrival of the Expedition 1 crew Nov. 1, 2000.
The coolant system repair work will be done on the 148th and 149th spacewalks to be performed in the assembly and maintenance of the $100 billion station, construction of which began in late 1998.
Total time accumulated during the 147 previous excursions: 921 hours and 35 minutes — or more than 38 days.
Call in George Brazil… They guarantee service in one day. 😉