Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Emergency Spacewalk Delayed

NASA has delayed for one day the emergency spacewalk to repair the ISS cooling system, which malfunctioned Saturday. Engineers decided they needed one more day of practice in the Johnson Space Center's neutral bouyancy tank to get the necessary procedures worked out. The first of two scheduled spacewalks will now take place on Friday.

The cooling system is critical to the long term operation of ISS, so getting the primary loop back up and running is critical, but NASA insists the crew is in no danger. The backup system is working well, and the problem is confined to the U. S. segment of the station. The cooling system in the Russian segment is still functioning properly, and in a pinch it could take over cooling the entire complex for a short time.

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