14 DAY TRIAL // NASA mission managers said that the spacewalk conducted yesterday by two of its astronauts in low-Earth orbit was successful, and that a critical ammonia pump had been replaced without difficulties.
The pump assembly failed more than two weeks ago, on July 31, and the International Space Station (ISS) has been running on half-power ever since.
During the third spacewalk that NASA astronauts Douglas Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson conducted, the two Expedition 24 engineers managed to exchange the kitchen-sized ammonia pump.
The new module is bound to start operations soon, as mission planners are eager to restore functionality to the broken Loop A segment of the station's cooling system.
“It was a lot of hard work today and, hopefully, we'll have a pump up and running and be back in business on the space station,” Wheelock radioed to Mission Control after the extravehicular activity (EVA).
“ Great job guys, we're going to have a lot cooler space station here shortly,” officials on the ground replied. The spacewalk was conducted at an altitude of about 220 miles (354 kilometers) above Earth.
“It checked out great. It is looking good,” said after the procedure ended Courtenay McMillan, who is the ISS flight director.
With the Loop A segment shut down, there is nothing capable of removing excess heat from the American side of the ISS, including laboratories and modules.
This made astronauts shut down some of the non-essential scientific experiments they were conducted, and to keep power consumption to a minimum.
In order for the ammonia cooling system to work, a pump is needed to push the heat-absorbing ammonia coolant through the pipes, Space reports.
With the new device in place, the Loop is bound to come online soon, alleviating the tensions that have been building up at NASA, and on the orbital facility, for days.
The cooling system is critical for the ISS, engineers at NASA say, as evidenced by the fact that this scenario is one of only 14 major failures for which the American space agency planned in advance.