In an extravehicular activity (EVA) on the International Space Station (ISS) on March 23, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer was surprised by a water leak inside his helmet. To investigate the causes of the incident, NASA announced that all non-urgent spacewalks are temporarily suspended.
During a press conference on Tuesday (17), the US space agency said that it will carry out a thorough inspection of the space suits of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), which are the clothes and accessories used during the functions performed. outside the ISS.
It so happens that the helmet used by Maurer only returns to Earth in July, so spacewalks that are not of the utmost urgency (for emergency repairs in the orbital laboratory, for example) will take several months to resume.
Maurer reported about 20 to 25 centimeters of water in a very thin layer of the helmet, covering the inner surface of the accessory. “The suit sometimes generates a little water, but that was a little beyond what our normal experience faces,” said Dana Weigel, deputy program manager for the ISS at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “It was specifically the amount of water that caught our attention.”
She said the agency will analyze the spacesuit’s water samples and filters as part of the ongoing investigation. “We’re looking for obvious signs of contamination, dirt or anything else.”
Serious water leak incident suspended EVAs in 2013
This is the second time spacewalks have been suspended due to an unexpected water leak. In July 2013, however, the situation was much more serious.
At the time, the face of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was almost completely immersed in the water that swelled inside his helmet. About an hour after starting work on a spacewalk with NASA’s Chris Cassidy, he reported to mission control what was happening, and the activity stopped. Parmitano emerged safely from the incident and unharmed.
As a result, NASA suspended all spacewalks at the time amid an investigation, which culminated in a report completed nine months later, which listed several factors that could be changed to prevent future problems.
The report identified the technical cause as “inorganic materials causing blockage of drum holes” in an EMU water separator. This, in turn, caused water to overflow through a vent cannula.
“A water filtration facility on Johnson [Centro Espacial] had not been managed for silica,” read a document written by NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in April 2017. “As a result, silica-laden water was used in the processing of in-flight hardware filters, which they were later used in four orbiting spacesuits.”
The agency addressed the silica situation and also created backups for astronauts in case of leaks. Starting in 2014, astronauts used an “absorption pad” on the back of their helmet to “suck out” excess water. In addition, a breathing tube was inserted into the helmet in case the water covered the astronaut’s face.
Since these measures were put in place, the water leak that drew the most attention was the recent Maurer incident.
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NASA sends additional pillows for any urgent spacewalks
“We have a very thin type of absorbent pads that we can put inside the helmet,” Weigel said. “One of them is on the back of the crew’s headset, and the other is sort of a band that goes up over the head. It’s like a bandana but would be attached to the inner bubble layer of the helmet. And that would offer some mitigation.”
Some of these additional pillows mentioned by Weigel were taken to the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission, and another 16 will be sent this Thursday (19) by Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Weigel emphasized that these extra pillows represent a contingency plan in case astronauts need to repair something in space before the investigation is complete.
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