ISS Repairs Delay

The first spacewalk to repair the ISS cooling system ran into another problem yesterday as astronauts found an ammonia leak. That is potentially serious, as the station obviously has only a limited supply of ammonia to circulate through the cooling system. Because of the leak, the astronauts failed to swap pumps.

NASA now says repairing the system will require a third spacewalk, and the second won't take place until Wednesday at the earliest. NASA still says the crew is in no immediate danger, but the cooling system is a vital system. Currently, ISS is working at less than full capacity; some lesser systems have been shut down, for example, to lessen the heat burden on the cooling system. At some point fairly soon, NASA needs to get the primary cooling loop back functioning.

Churchill and UFOs

The British Ministry of Defence has begun making its UFO files public. One of the most recent batch released involves Winston Churchill.

During World War II, it seems, a RAF bomber had a very close encounter with a craft the crew of the bomber couldn't identify. Churchill ordered the incident covered up because he feared the public might panic and people might begin questioning their religious beliefs.

There have been stories about "foo fighters" during World War II since the war. Both sides reported encounters with strange craft, and each side seemed to have assumed the things were advanced aircraft from the other side. Indeed, a current favorite among UFO skeptics is to explain most UFO reports as sightings of advanced, experimental aircraft with which the public was unfamiliar.

An advanced German aircraft might have panicked the British public, although German rocket attacks-- a completely new terror, and one the RAF could not counter once the rocket was on its way-- did not break British resolve. How such an aircraft could have had the British people questioning their religious beleifs, though, is unclear. That suggests Churchill, at least, saw the craft that encountered the RAF bomber as something fundamentally different than a Nazi creation-- something that could strike at the very heart of Western civilization. Exactly what that could possibly have been, in an strictly Earthly context, is extremely difficult to imagine.

Another Delay

NASA has once again delayed the first spacewalk to deal with the failed pump of the ISS cooling system. Now, that spacewalk is scheduled for Saturday, while a second is slated for no sooner than next Wednesday. NASA says its engineers need the extra day to refine procedures necessary in the repair.

Essentially, the first spacewalk will remove the bad pump and put the replacement in position, while the second will actually connect the new pump to the cooling system.

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.

Checking Up On MESSENGER

NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury is in good shape to begin its primary mission to the innermost planet. Scheduled to drop into orbit next March 18, the plan is for the probe to study Mercury for one Earth year. It will be the most extensive examination of the planet yet.

Launched in 2004, MESSENGER has already flown by Mercury three times as it jockeyed for the right angle and speed to allow it to reach the desired orbit in 2011. Science done during those flybys has already changed our view of Mercury. It seems to have a magnetic field similar to Earth's, for example, which argues Mercury still has an active core-- a surprise to most planetary scientists. There also seems to be volcanism in the Mercurian past, another surprise. We also now know Mercury has an atmosphere, albeit a wispy one, which seemed quite unlikely for such a small planet so exposed to the powerful, stripping solar wind.

No doubt the Mercury that emerges by the end of the MESSENGER mission will be different again from the image we now have.

Emergency Spacewalk

NASA is planning an emergency spacewalk-- more likely two-- to repair the ISS cooling system that collapsed Saturday. Two astronauts will replace a pump module that is supposed to the send supercold ammonia throughout the station, keeping its electrical systems from overheating.

"Emergency" may be a bit misleading. The first of the two spacewalks is scheduled for Thursday, after all-- which jibes with NASA's statement that the crew is in no danger-- so we don't have a desperate space drama unfolding unless something else goes wrong. Still, this is a major malfunction which is forcing an unscheduled repair-- never a good thing in the spaceflight business.

Cooling ISS

A power spike aboard ISS set off an alarm that woke up the entire crew late yesterday. The crew had to shut down some systems-- including the primary cooling system-- to reduce power usage.

NASA says the crew-- three Russians and three Americans-- is in no danger.