Two astronauts from the International Space Agency ( ISS ) are left in the space to stop a leak on Saturday in the early afternoon afternoon. Americans Christopher Cassidy (43) and Thomas Marshburn (52) have therefore left the cabin in which they have lived for six months with four other astronauts. Their mission: picking a major ammonia leak detected Thursday by the crew. The intervention of two American astronauts began as scheduled this afternoon 12:00 to 12:15 GMT (2:15 p.m. evening Paris time). The mission should not require more than six hours of work. Nasa says the intervention live on its website.
This leakage is considered a “very serious mistake” by the head of the ruse segment of the ISS, Vladimir Soloviev. The mission commander on the ISS, Canadian Chris Hadfield, also known on Twitter that it was a “serious situation.”
Two pounds of ammonia escaped
According to an official of the ISS, Michael Suffredini, a meteorite or a piece of orbital debris could have caused the damage by hitting the cooling radiator. This concern, which was already a source of concern in recent years has worsened Thursday when two kilograms of ammonia leaked in a day against the same volume usually seen in a year. “We’ll get them out and see if we can not find where the leak is coming from,” said Michael Suffredini told reporters. “It is most likely that the source (leak) the pump itself, so we will change the pump.”
The current crew, which consists of 6 people, Thursday alerted the command center of the station, based in Houston, Texas (southern United States), the presence of “small white flakes floating around the station, “said NASA in a statement. Images provided by the crew confirmed the leak from one of the cooling systems, which had been defective November 1, 2012. Ammonia is used to cool the channels through which passes the electricity produced by solar panels.
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