14 DAY TRIAL // Officials at the American space agency announce that they decided to schedule the third extravehicular activity (EVA) aimed at repairing a troublesome ammonia pump on the International Space Station (ISS) to Monday.
Thus far, NASA astronauts and Expedition 24 flight engineers Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson have performed two spacewalks, during which they managed to remove the broken pump, and stave off a potentially dangerous ammonia leak.
But the Loop A section of the ISS' cooling system is still offline, which means that activities in the American section of the orbital facility need to be kept to a minimum.
The ammonia cooling system was responsible for collecting excess heat from modules and laboratories, and then release it into space through radiator panels.
But, in order for that to be possible, a pump needs to push the ammonia coolant through the pipes. The pump in charge of powering Loop A broke off on July 31.
In the new spacewalk, scheduled for Monday, August 16, Wheelock and Caldwell Dyson will attempt to install a new ammonia pump, so as to restore full functionality to the Loop.
It could be that a fourth EVA may be needed as well, in order to finish all remaining chores, NASA experts believe, although no clear decision in this direction has yet been made.
“Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson will venture outside to install a replacement pump and connect its electrical and fluid lines,” NASA officials say in a press release.
Initially, the activity was supposed to take place on Sunday, but NASA mission planners and engineers decided to push it back by 24 hours.
The extra day secured from the delay will be used to allow ground crews and the six astronauts aboard the ISS some much-needed rest.
“We've got an enormous workforce that has, in a large part, dropped everything while we work on this,” says the ISS program manager, Mike Suffredini,
“This team is good, but there's just so many hours in a spacewalk and there's a lot of work left to be done to get ourselves all buttoned up in the same condition we were before we started these EVAs,” the official adds.
At this point, the ISS is home to three American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts, who are part of the Expedition 24 crew.
As the cooling system situation develops, the crew is more and more redirected from its usual science duties to help out with the repair efforts.
NASA is adamant that the failure, which occurred July 31, did not put the astronauts in danger at any time.
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