NASA is moving up the first all-female space walk because of a power system failure at the International Space Station.
Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir are now to venture out today or tomorrow, instead of on Monday next week, to deal with the problem. It would be the first space walk by only women in more than a half-century of spacewalking.
A critical battery charger failed over the weekend, prompting the change, NASA officials said on Monday.
The women will replace the broken component, rather than install new batteries, which was their original job.
Last week, astronauts conducted the first two of five space walks to replace old batteries that make up the station’s solar power network.
The remaining space walks — originally scheduled for this week and next — have been delayed for at least another few weeks so engineers can determine why the battery charger failed. It was the second such failure this year.
The devices regulate the amount of charge going to and from each battery.
One did not start on Friday last week, preventing one of the three newly installed lithium-ion batteries from working.
The balky charger is 19 years old; the one that failed in the spring was almost as old. Only three spares remain available.
“It’s absolutely a concern at this point when you don’t know what’s going on,” said Kenny Todd, a space station manager. “We’re still scratching our heads looking at the data. Hopefully, we can clear that up in relatively short order.”
Despite the slight loss of power, the station and its six occupants are safe, and science operations are unaffected, NASA said.
The situation is “manageable, but again not something that we would want to live with in the long term,” Todd told reporters.
NASA originally planned an all-female space walk last spring, but had to cancel it because of a shortage of readily available medium-size suits.
Koch helped assemble an extra medium-size suit over the summer.
“Very good that we have 4 expert spacewalkers on board to shoulder this tough task. They are the A-team!” astronaut Anne McClain, who would have gone spacewalking with Koch in March if not for the suit-sizing issue, said on Twitter.
While all four — two men and two women — are equally trained for the repair job, Koch and Meir are the right choices given the future spacewalking workload, officials said.
Since the first space walk in 1965, there have been 227 spacewalkers, only 14 of them women and all but one American.
Meir will be making her first spacewalk and become No. 15.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS