NASA has greenlit spacewalks outdoors of the Worldwide Area Station after a flight readiness overview. Spacewalks had been suspended for practically seven months since March 23 when a small quantity of water was present in ESA (European Area Company) astronaut Matthias Maurer’s helmet.
“Crew security is the highest precedence of NASA and our worldwide companions. I’m pleased with the house station and floor groups’ work to maintain our crew members protected, for taking the time needed to shut out the investigation, and for regularly findings methods to mitigate dangers in human spaceflight,” mentioned Kathryn Lueders, affiliate administrator for NASA’s Area Operations Mission Directorate, in a press assertion.
After Maurer’s spacewalk months in the past, the crew on the house station instantly eliminated his helmet and labored with NASA’s floor help staff to collect information on the difficulty. The American house company categorised the occasion as a detailed name and declared a cease to all pending spacewalks.
Samples of the water and a few of the {hardware} in Maurer’s go well with had been despatched again to Earth with the Russian Soyuz 65S and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission. All the spacesuit was then returned with the SpaceX CRS-25 mission for detailed evaluation.
What did the investigation reveal?
After finishing an in depth take a look at and teardown of the house go well with, and evaluating the water samples and go well with {hardware} to see what occurred, NASA groups confirmed that there have been no {hardware} failures with the go well with.
In line with the house company, it’s probably that the surplus water within the spacesuit was shaped by condensation because of the built-in methods performing a number of settings for crew exertion and crew cooling on the identical time.
Together with updating operational procedures, house station groups have developed new mitigation {hardware} to scale back the probability of such condensation resulting in water accumulation, whereas additionally absorbing any water if it seems. NASA’s administration groups permitted the return to regular operations after the brand new operational procedures and mitigation {hardware} was added.