A bubble of coolant leak out of a radiator seize to the International Space Station ( ISS ) , jeopardizing an on-going spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on Wednesday .
Cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub exited the ISS and began their spacewalk at 1:49 p.m. ET . During the nearly eight hour spacewalk , the couplet were inspecting a making water on a backup radiator on Russia ’s Nauka science laboratory mental faculty when residual coolant spewed out of the wetting site , NASAwrotein a blog post .
The spacewalking cosmonauts were say to leave the area straight off out of fear for their rubber , although NASA later revealed that the coolant did not get onto their suits . Before reentering through the Poisk air lock , the astronaut wiped down their cause and tools “ to look for signs of coolant and pass over off any coolant as necessary , ” NASA compose .
Cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub prepare a synthetic radar communications system for installation during their seven-hour and 41-minute spacewalk.Image: NASA TV
“ The cosmonauts also pass over down their courtship and instrument as usual after repressurization to further dilute the creation of trace contaminants into the place place surroundings , ” the place agency added . “ Additional filtration will then be used inside the blank place in ordering to quickly scrub the standard pressure of any remaining traces of contamination . ”
On October 9 , flight controllers at NASA ’s deputation control note that thebackup radiator on Russia ’s Nauka module was leak coolantinto down Earth scope . Although the main radiator was still working normally and did not disrupt ISS operations , the leak resulted in thedelay of two NASA spacewalksas engineers reviewed the data of the incident .
During Wednesday ’s spacewalk , the cosmonauts installed a man-made radar communication system and released a nanosatellite to test solar canvass technology . The two spaceman were also imagine to isolate the leak radiator but they were not able to due to the house of cards of leaking coolant that splatter out of it .
The backup radiator was delivered to the ISS in 2010 and shift to the Nauka module during a Roscosmos spacewalk in April . The module itself was added to the ISS in July 2021 .
This is the third time a leak has spring from Russian hardware attached to the ISS . In December 2022 , ground teams observeda fountain of particlespouring out from a Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS . At the time , Russia impute the first leakage to amicrometeorite strike on the ballistic capsule . Shortly after , however , aRussian Progress 82 freighter docked to the ISS also lead off leaking coolantin February . Russia ’s space agency again claimed that it wascaused by an outside impact , but now with the third incident , it is heavy not to call into question the unity of the ironware itself .
So far , NASA is claiming that it is business as usual on board the ISS . One of its delayed spacewalks was reschedule to October 30 , and NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli are still set to venture outside the space post despite the spaceman ’ spacewalk mischance .
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