emergency to stop the leak. astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) Friday were preparing to leave the next space to address an ammonia leak detected by the crew as “very serious” by Russian official.
The U.S. space agency (Nasa) has announced that the ISS crew, consisting of six people Thursday had detected an ammonia leak from a cooling system, immediately pointing out that it did run no danger to astronauts or the Station.
However, the head of the Russian segment of the ISS, Vladimir Solovyov, for his part felt that it was a “very serious anomaly.”
“serious situation”
He said that Russian and American specialists were consulting to organize an outing of the crew in space to verify the source of the leak.
The mission commander on the ISS, Canadian Chris Hadfield, also known on Twitter that it was a “serious situation” and announced a little more later that the spacewalk would be Saturday.
“The spacewalk is tomorrow, Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn are preparing their combinations and airlock,” he wrote.
According
Spaceflight101 specialized internet site, this spacewalk is expected to last about six hours.
Hello Houston, we have a problem
According to a statement from NASA, the current ISS crew alerted Thursday the command center of the station, based in Houston, Texas (southern United States), the presence of “small white flakes floating around the station. “
pictures provided by the crew confirmed the leak from a cooling system, which had been defective November 1, 2012. Ammonia is used to cool the channels through which passes the electricity produced by solar panels.
Another official of the Russian space industry has however downplayed the seriousness of the incident.
“It has indeed been an ammonia leak, the U.S. segment of the station, but it is not critical,” said the director of programs run in the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) Alexei Krasnov, quoted by Ria Novosti.
“This is not the first time that such a situation occurs, unfortunately,” he said, adding however that the Russian segment of the ISS functioning normally.
technical failure
end of April, a technical failure – an antenna that had not deployed – came shortly after the launch of a Russian Progress cargo ship loaded with supplies and refueling had feared problems when docking to ISS, which could require an output of the crew in space.
Finally, the ship was successfully docked to the station.
Since 2009, ISS welcomes rotations by up to six astronauts, while his ability was previously limited to three people.
Besides
Americans Marshburn and Cassidy and the Canadian Hadfield, the current Station crew has the Russians Roman Romanenko and Alexander Vinogradov Missourkine.
Three of them, Romanenko, Hadfield Marshburn and must return to Earth Tuesday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.
AFP
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