Spacewalk a near disaster
2004-06-25 10:40
Cape Canaveral - Two astronauts who stepped out of the international space station for an unusually risky spacewalk were quickly ordered back in when Mission Control spotted a pressure drop in one of the men's oxygen tanks.
Nasa stressed on Thursday that the spacemen were never in any danger. They were safely in the pressurised confines of the orbiting complex within minutes, and said they were feeling fine.
The repair spacewalk, to replace a fizzled circuit breaker, was put off until Tuesday at the earliest. Flight controllers said they need to understand what went wrong before sending astronaut Mike Fincke and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka back outside.
Fincke had just popped open the hatch and floated outside on a repair job when the frightening words came from Russian Mission Control: "You need to return. Something is not right."
Mission Control informed the spacemen - both wearing an odd mishmash of US and Russian gear - that the pressure in Fincke's prime oxygen bottle was falling rapidly. They needed to get back inside, fast, and close the hatch.
A disappointing moment
They sealed the hatch 14 minutes and 22 seconds after opening it and repressurised the Russian air lock.
Flight controllers peppered the crewmen with questions about the pressure in the oxygen bottle for Fincke's spacesuit. As Padalka helped Fincke with his suit, his own helmet started to fog up because of the halt in cooling.
Nearly one hour after the spacewalk began, both crewmen were instructed to take off their spacesuits. The announcement that the spacewalk was officially over came soon afterward.
It was a disappointing moment in space.
"Have some tea, coffee," Mission Control kindly told the crewmen.
Nasa said the suit pressure itself never faltered and that the problem was confined to the oxygen tank. The spacemen listened for a hiss from the bottle, but heard nothing.
Fincke and Padalka were using an improvised combination of both of their countries' gear on a mission to replace a fried circuit breaker. A new breaker is needed to restore power to one of the gyroscopes that help keep the station stable and pointed in the right direction.
The mission was fraught with risk, even before Thursday night's suit trouble.
Space station left empty
Nasa has been bending its own rules to keep the space station operating since the grounding of the shuttle fleet following last year's Columbia catastrophe. The grounding has all but stopped the delivery of replacement parts and reduced the size of the station crew from three to two.
As a result, Nasa had to leave the space station empty during a spacewalk for only the second time ever, forcing flight controllers on the ground to keep an eye on the outpost's systems.
The crew was also expected to be out of antenna range from time to time, making communication blackouts likely. Fincke and Padalka devised hand signals for alerting each other of danger or conveying smooth sailing.
- AP