14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at NASA are currently pondering the possibility of organizing a series of extravehicular activities (EVA), aimed at fixing one of the loops in the cooling system of the International Space Station (ISS). The component broke down recently, and can only be fixed from outside the facility.
In an announcement made on Friday, December 13, NASA experts said that one or more EVA may be needed to address the situation. A similar issue that occurred in 2010 required three spacewalks to fix, PhysOrg reports.
Over the weekend, ISS mission controllers in the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe will decide whether or not to send astronauts outside the station. During a recent spacewalk, one of the American-built astronaut suits started to leak water, so spacewalks may be avoided for now.
NASA experts also said that astronauts aboard the ISS are in no immediate danger due to the glitch. The other cooling loops has taken over all critical systems and scientific experiments. If the worst comes to pass, then all six crew members on the space lab can evacuate the station aboard the two Russian-built Soyuz space capsules that always remain attached to the space lab.