US space officials planned emergency repairs yesterday after a failure of the cooling system on the International Space Station (ISS) that has forced astronauts to reroute power.
One of two cooling loops shut down on Saturday night, triggering alarms throughout the orbiting station, which is manned by three Russian and three US astronauts.
NASA said the crew is not in any danger, but an attempt overnight to close the circuit breaker and restart the pump module that feeds ammonia to the cooling system failed.
Astronauts closed down two of the gyroscopes that position the station as they rerouted power from the Destiny Laboratory research module to keep the temperature system stable. One gyroscope was later put back on line.
“The station is in a stable configuration, with most systems receiving cooling and many systems operating with redundancy following the installation of jumper cables from the Destiny Lab’s power system overnight,” NASA said. “The crew is not in any danger, and is monitoring systems and relaxing on an otherwise off-duty day. Temperatures on the main bus switching units, which route power to various systems, are a little higher than normal, but well within normal parameters and are stable.”
Despite the reassurances, NASA approved a preliminary plan for two US astronauts, Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, to conduct a spacewalk to fetch a replacement pump module.
“Although a final decision on a new spacewalk plan is still pending engineering and timeline analysis, the most likely scenario would call for an initial spacewalk no earlier than on Thursday by Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson to replace the pump module and structurally bolt it into place on the S1 truss, with an additional spacewalk by the duo two or three days later to mate fluid and electrical connections,” a statement said.
A briefing to discuss the latest developments and the spacewalk was scheduled for yesterday.
According to NASA figures, without thermal controls the space station’s sun-facing side would roast at 121ºC, while the outpost’s dark side would plunge to about minus 157ºC.
A statement posted some years ago on NASA’s Web site said: “There might be a comfortable spot somewhere in the middle of the Station, but searching for it wouldn’t be much fun.”
Before the module can be replaced, any residual ammonia must first be pumped out of the system, NASA said. Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson had already been scheduled for a spacewalk on Thursday to do routine maintenance work.
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