A spacewalk by two NASA astronauts at the International Space Station ended shortly after it began Monday morning when water began spraying into the airlock from one of their spacesuits.
“There's water everywhere,” astronaut Tracy Dyson reported to Mission Control.
That was just minutes after she and the other astronaut accompanying the spacewalk, Mike Barratt, switched their spacesuits to battery power, meaning the spacewalk began at 8:46 a.m. Eastern time.
“It was like a frigid wind blew all over my visor,” Dyson said.
She wiped the ice away and saw that the ice crystals were coming from the Service and Cooling Connection Unit that connects to the suit, which provides power, oxygen and water to the astronauts while they're in the airlock. The leak started when Dyson disconnected the unit.
“You could see ice crystals floating around,” Dyson said. “Just like an ice shaving machine, ice was being made in that port.”
Space station controllers in Houston later called the spacewalk off, and NASA said the astronauts were not in danger.
The shortened spacewalk was the latest in a series of problems NASA has experienced this month, including a previously postponed spacewalk and a delay in the return of two astronauts aboard Boeing's Starliner space capsule on its first voyage with astronauts to the space station.
On Monday, Dyson reconnected the umbilical unit, which stopped the leak. She and Barratt returned to the space station 45 minutes later and donned their spacesuits. Though they never made it outside the hatch, their spacewalk was still recorded as lasting 31 minutes, from the time the internal batteries were switched on until the airlock was repressurized.
They were scheduled to spend six and a half hours outdoors, with their main mission being to remove a faulty electronic box from a communications antenna and collect samples from the space station's exterior as part of a scientific study to see if microorganisms can survive in the harsh, airless, radiation-filled environment of space.
This is Dyson's second spacewalk this month to be canceled. She and Matthew Dominik, another NASA astronaut currently stationed at the space station, were scheduled to perform a spacewalk on June 13, but it was postponed after Dominik complained of “spacesuit discomfort.”
NASA didn't provide any further details about what happened, but Barratt was later replaced by Dominic, who was scheduled to take part in the next spacewalk. “We had a spacesuit ready for him, and we decided it made sense to use Tracy and Mike,” Dana Weigel, NASA's space station program manager, said at a press conference on June 18.
NASA has scheduled another spacewalk for July 2, but those plans are subject to change.
The spacesuits that NASA astronauts currently wear on spacewalks are more than 40 years old, dating back to the early space shuttle era; NASA has contracted with Collins Aerospace to procure replacements for use on the space station. (Another company, Axiom Space, is developing the suits NASA astronauts will wear when they walk on the moon.)
Current spacesuit malfunctions are rare but potentially serious: In 2013, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano nearly drowned when a clogged fan pump caused water to fill his helmet. Monday's problem involved a different part of the suit.
NASA managers are also trying to understand problems experienced by Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which carried two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and docked safely with the space station on June 6. The mission was part of the spacecraft's test flight, and Starliner's propulsion system leaked helium, which is used to pump propellant into the thrusters, five times. Some of the thrusters also failed as Starliner approached docking.
Boeing and NASA engineers believe the helium leak is small enough that it won't cause any serious problems during the return journey, and all but one of the thrusters now appear to be working properly after a brief test burn a week ago.
But NASA officials decided to take more time to review the data and postponed the return until July at the earliest. The Starliner spacecraft is approved to stay docked at the space station for 45 days, until July 21. The mission was originally scheduled for eight days, but Wilmore and Williams have now been aboard the station for 18 days.
