Miami (EFE).- The spacewalk of NASA astronauts Tracy C. Dyson and Mike Barrat, which was going to take place this Monday at the International Space Station (ISS), was suspended due to “a water leak in the spacesuit service and cooling unit” of the first, the US agency reported.
Dyson and Barrat arrived to put on the suits and open the ISS airlock hatch at 8:46 local time (12:46 GMT), but they had to inform the control station that there was a problem regarding the water and cooling of the suit.
“The crew is working with ground controllers to repressurize the airlock section before returning inside the station,” NASA said in a statement.
The space walk
The two astronauts were scheduled to walk for more than six hours and remove a defective electronic box from a communications antenna located on the starboard structure of the ISS.
The pair also intended to “collect samples of microorganisms for analysis to understand the ability” of these living systems to “survive and reproduce outside the orbital laboratory.”
Dyson wears a red-striped spacesuit, while Barratt wears an unmarked one. “The 90th United States spacewalk will be the fourth for Dyson and the third for Barratt,” NASA said before the start of the day this Monday.
He added that this is the 271st spacewalk in assembly, maintenance and improvement work on the space station.
Before this Monday’s failures, the ISS had also announced that it has scheduled another spacewalk for next July 2 at 9:00 a.m. local time (1:00 p.m. GMT), in which the astronauts for six hours “will replace a gyroscope, relocate an antenna and prepare for future upgrades to the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.”
