Astronauts leave space station to replace cooling pump

[Buster's Uncle]

Astronauts leave space station to replace cooling pump
Reuters
By Irene Klotz  4 hours ago



NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins is seen during the spacewalk in this photo courtesy of NASA



CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Two NASA astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Tuesday for a second and final spacewalk to fix the outpost's critical cooling system.

Flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins were slated to spend about 6 1/2 hours outside the station to install a new ammonia cooling system pump. A nonworking unit was removed during a spacewalk on Saturday.

"Let's get to work," Hopkins said as left the station's Quest airlock just before 7 a.m. EST as it soared 260 miles over Mongolia.

The spacewalk was broadcast live on NASA Television.

Hopkins, in his second spacewalk, was due to attach himself to the end of the station's 58-foot-long (17.7-meter) robotic arm for a ride over to where the spare pump is located.



Flight engineers Michael Hopkins and Richard Mastracchio perform a series of spacewalks


Flying the arm from a control post inside the station's Destiny laboratory was Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who is due to take over command of the complex, a project of 15 nations, in March. Wakata's backup was current Commander Oleg Kotov, one of three Russian cosmonauts aboard the space station.

Meanwhile Mastracchio, a veteran of seven spacewalks, rummaged through storage bags outside the station for the tools needed to hook up the new pump's electrical connections and ammonia fluid lines.

The U.S. side of the $100 billion space station, which includes Japanese and European laboratories, has been without half its cooling system since December 11 when a valve failed inside a pump.

The six-member crew was never in any danger, but both cooling systems are needed to radiate heat from the station's modules and laboratories.

With just one cooling loop, astronauts had to turn off unnecessary equipment and some science experiments. The Russian part of the station has a separate cooling system.

During Saturday's spacewalk, Mastracchio and Hopkins removed the failed pump and put it in a temporary storage location outside the station.

NASA is considering a possible future spacewalk to repair the pump and keep it as another spare. In addition to the new pump being installed on Tuesday, the station currently has two other spares.

Saturday's outing was NASA's first spacewalk since July when the water-cooled spacesuit worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano developed a leak. His helmet began filling with water, a situation that could have caused him to drown if the spacewalk was not quickly aborted.

Engineers traced the problem to contaminated water in a device that circulates water and air in a spacesuit and takes moisture out of the air. How the water became contaminated remains under investigation.

As a precaution, the helmets worn by Mastracchio and Hopkins were outfitted with moisture-absorbent pads and homemade snorkels that could draw air from the belly of the spacesuits in case the problem reoccurred.

No leaks were reported during Saturday's spacewalk.


http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-leave-space-station-replace-cooling-pump-135447793.html

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA astronauts step out on Christmas Eve spacewalk
AFP
By Kerry Sheridan  3 hours ago



In this image taken from video provided by NASA, astronauts Rick Mastracchio, top, and Michael Hopkins work to repair an external cooling line on the International Space Station on Monday, Dec. 24, 2013, 260 miles above Earth. The external cooling line — one of two — shut down Dec. 11. The six-man crew had to turn off all nonessential equipment, including experiments. (AP Photo/NASA)



Washington (AFP) - Two NASA astronauts stepped out Tuesday on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk to wrap up repairs to an equipment cooling system at the International Space Station.

Americans Rick Mastracchio, 53, and Mike Hopkins, 44, floated outside the orbiting lab on a second outing to replace an ammonia pump whose internal control valve failed on December 11.

Their task was to retrieve a spare pump module from an external stowage platform and install it.

Despite recent concerns about leaking spacesuits, the spacewalk got off to a smooth start.

After about two hours outside the station, Hopkins, riding a 57-foot (15-meter) robotic arm operated from inside the station by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, managed to unhook the connectors on the spare.

"Okay, my friend you have yourself a pump module," said a NASA official at mission control in Houston, overheard in footage broadcast live on the space agency's online television station.

With his boots affixed to the Canadian-made arm, Hopkins' grasped the refrigerator-sized pump module as Wakata maneuvered him over to its installation location.

Then, Hopkins and Mastracchio pushed the module into its slot and began affixing it in place.



Details of repairs to the International Space Station


Hopkins and Mastracchio must complete five electrical connections and four fluid connections before the pump can be activated.

Tuesday's spacewalk was expected to last six and a half hours, which the US space agency estimated would be enough time to complete the repair job.

NASA said tests would be done on the new pump later Tuesday to see how well it is working.

Earlier in the day, Mastracchio reported seeing a tiny piece of space junk strike the space station near where the spare pump was stowed.

A NASA commentator said: "micrometeoroid debris... is not uncommon to strike station structures in this 15 years that the International Space Station has been flying in orbit."

The team made swift work of the first spacewalk on Saturday, disconnecting and pulling out the old cooling pump that regulates the temperature of equipment at the orbiting space lab.

They managed to complete what had been seen as almost two days' worth of work in a single outing that lasted just five and a half hours, ending an hour earlier than planned.



US astronaut Rick Mastracchio during a space suit test prior to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on November 7, 2013


Orchestrating the spacewalks from inside the station's Destiny laboratory was Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

He arrived at the space station in November for a half-year stay as part of the six-member international crew.

In March, he will become the first Japanese commander of the space station, NASA said.

Meanwhile, Mastracchio was wearing a different spacesuit than the one he donned on Saturday, a backup that was stored at the station and was resized to fit him over the weekend.

On Saturday, a "small amount of water" had entered his suit's cooling system in the space station airlock after he finished the spacewalk, NASA said.

But the US space agency said the problem was not related to the water leak in a helmet that cut short Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's spacewalk in July and risked drowning him.

NASA is still investigating what went wrong in that case.

As a backup measure, the astronauts are now outfitted with emergency snorkels in their spacesuits and extra pads to absorb any leaking water in their helmets.

NASA officials have said the suits, which were designed 35 years ago, are safe, and stressed that Saturday's problem did not put Mastracchio in any danger.

The spacewalk marks the second of Hopkins' career, and the eighth for Mastracchio.

NASA said the last time astronauts embarked on a Christmas Eve spacewalk was 14 years ago, when space shuttle Discovery astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld stepped out to install upgrades and new insulation on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Later this week, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy will make a spacewalk on December 27 to install a pair of high-fidelity cameras on the Zvezda service module and to do maintenance on the Russian segment of the station.


http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-poised-second-spacewalk-repair-station-020420313.html

[Buster's Uncle]

NASA Astronauts Begin Christmas Eve Spacewalk for Space Station Repairs
SPACE.com
By Megan Gannon, News Editor  8 hours ago



In this image taken from video provided by NASA, astronauts Rick Mastracchio, top, and Michael Hopkins work to repair an external cooling line on the International Space Station on Monday, Dec. 24, 2013, 260 miles above Earth. The external cooling line one of two shut down Dec. 11. The six-man crew had to turn off all nonessential equipment, including experiments. (AP Photo/NASA)



Two American astronauts are spending Christmas Eve working in the vacuum of space to hopefully fix the vital cooling system aboard the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio officially started the spacewalk at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT). The two astronauts ventured outside of the space station's Quest airlock shortly afterwards, getting to work on their second spacewalk in four days. You can watch the spacewalk live on SPACE.com today (Dec. 24) via NASA TV.

"In this holiday way of giving, we're giving you a spacewalk today," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said during NASA TV's coverage of the spacewalk. Today's spacewalk is the second-ever Christmas Eve EVA (extra-vehicular activity, another term for spacewalk). The first took place 14 years ago as space shuttle Discovery astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld spent 8 hours and 8 minutes installing upgrades and new insulation on the Hubble Space Telescope.

During today's 6.5-hour spacewalk, Hopkins and Mastracchio will work to replace a faulty pump module that helps cool equipment inside and outside of the space laboratory. Since part of the pump failed on Dec. 11, non-critical systems and science experiments in two of the station's laboratories have been shut down.

NASA officials have said the six astronauts currently living inside the space station are not in any immediate danger, but the series of spacewalks is necessary to get the orbiting outpost back to normal.

On Dec. 21, Hopkins and Mastracchio performed the first urgent spacewalk in which they successfully removed the failed refrigerator-size pump module and stored it on a nearby platform ahead of schedule. During today's walk, the astronauts will install a replacement pump module stored on the station's exterior.

If the astronauts' work goes as planned, NASA officials said a third spacewalk probably won't be necessary, and the two astronauts will have a quiet Christmas Day.

Tuesday's spacewalk — the eighth for Mastracchio and the second for Hopkins — was originally scheduled for Monday (Dec. 23), but it was delayed because of a problem with Mastracchio's spacesuit. According to NASA, a small amount of water entered the suit's cooling system during the repressurization of the airlock on Saturday after the first spacewalk ended.

Mastracchio is wearing a different spacesuit for Tuesday's extra-vehicular activity. Space agency officials say the issue is unrelated to the leak that flooded Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's spacesuit during a spacewalk in July.

Because of the quickly planned spacewalks, the first official cargo mission of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft had to be postponed. The unmanned freighter, packed with science experiments and supplies, was set to launch to the International Space Station on Dec. 19 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Now NASA officials said that liftoff will not occur before Jan. 7, 2014.

Hopkins and Mastracchio's spacewalk will also be the 176th spacewalk overall in support of the assembly and maintenance of the $100 billion International Space Station, which has been continuously inhabited by rotating crews of astronauts since 2000.


http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-astronauts-begin-christmas-eve-spacewalk-space-station-120855594.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Astronauts Repair Space Station on Christmas Eve Spacewalk
Good Morning America
By RYAN OWENS and GINA SUNSERI  12 hours ago






What do you get an ailing space station for Christmas?

How about a new cooling system, courtesy of Santa's helpers, a.k.a. NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio.

After weeks of attempting to fix the malfunctioning system from inside the International Space Station, the duo successfully replaced the 780-pound cooling pump today after two spacewalks, NASA officials said.

When astronaut Doug Wheelock in Mission Control congratulated Hopkins and Mastracchio with the words, “best Christmas gift ever,” Hopkins responded: “It took us a couple of weeks to get it done but we did it.”

This was the 177th spacewalk on the ISS since it started operating 15 years ago, the second for Hopkins and the eighth for Mastracchio. It was also only the second Christmas Eve spacewalk since a space shuttle mission to fix the Hubble space telescope 14 years ago.

The entire crew has Christmas day off to celebrate and recover from two weeks of brainstorming and preps for two dramatic spacewalks. But they will be merry-making sans their Christmas goodies because the Cygnus cargo vessel launch was delayed while the cooling problem was being sorted out.

Before today's spacewalk, Mission Control radioed up a timely bulletin to the astronauts assuring them that their spacewalk wouldn't interfere with Santa's mission on Christmas Eve.

“Checked with our trajectory and ballistics officer here in Mission Control. We are not working any possible conjunctions or avoidance maneuvers for a sleigh being pulled by reindeer and occupied by a jolly man with a beard and a red suit over the next 2 days. The skies are all clear,” Houston told the astronauts.

A Saturday spacewalk brought them halfway to the goal of repairing the pump, and they finished the task today.

Wheelock, who also conducted a spacewalk in 2010, said he understands the vivid interest in what’s going on the space station.

“The movie [Gravity] really kind of ratcheted up public interest in what we're doing up there. I actually enjoyed the movie," Wheelock said. "I think it's brilliantly put together with visual images of what it's like to be out there in space. I think it captured well the human emotion of being isolated and the drama."

Next up for the ISS -- a Russian spacewalk on Friday. Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy are scheduled to install two Canadian Earth observation cameras. That spacewalk begins at 8 a.m. ET.

And on Jan. 7 the postponed Orbital-1 Cygnus Resupply Mission to the ISS is scheduled to take off at 1:55 p.m. ET.



Astronauts Repair Space Station on Christmas Eve Spacewalk (ABC News)


http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-gear-second-spacewalk-repair-international-space-station-055126575--abc-news-topstories.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spacewalkers install new station cooling pump
Reuters
By Irene Klotz  44 minutes ago



NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins is seen during the spacewalk in this photo courtesy of NASA



CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Two NASA astronauts spent more than seven hours working outside the International Space Station on Tuesday and successfully repaired a critical cooling system.

It was the second spacewalk in three days for flight engineers Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, who wrapped up the cumbersome work with only one problem.

As they were installing a spare cooling pump, a sprinkling of ammonia crystals leaked out from one of four fluid lines. The toxic liquid turns to flakes in the cold and weightlessness environment of space.

The astronauts spent an extra 15 minutes in the station's Quest airlock to bake out any potential residue on their spacesuits. The 7.5-hour spacewalk was broadcast live on NASA Television.

"It took a couple of licks to get her done, but we got it," Hopkins radioed to flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston.



Still image taken from NASA handout video shows flight engineers Hopkins and Mastracchio performing series of spacewalks outside International Space Station


The new pump will not be fully tested until later on Tuesday, but an initial check in the final hour of the spacewalk showed it was "alive and well," reported NASA mission commentator Rob Navias.

During a spacewalk on Saturday, the astronauts removed a failed cooling system pump and attached it to a temporary storage site at the base of the station's mobile rail cart.

NASA is considering a potential future spacewalk to repair the refrigerator-size pump and use it as a spare, officials said.

In addition to the new pump installed on Tuesday, there are two other spare pumps aboard the station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 260 miles above Earth.

The U.S. side of the station, which includes Japanese and European laboratories, has been without half its cooling system since December 11 when a valve failed inside a pump.

The six-member crew was never in any danger, NASA said, but both cooling systems are needed to radiate heat from the station's modules and laboratories.

With just one cooling loop, astronauts had to turn off unnecessary equipment and some science experiments. The Russian part of the station has a separate cooling system.

The spacewalks were NASA's first since July when the water-cooled spacesuit worn by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano developed a leak. His helmet began filling with water, a situation that could have caused him to drown if the spacewalk was not quickly aborted.

Engineers at the time traced the problem to contaminated water in a device that circulates water and air in a spacesuit and takes moisture out of the air. How the water became contaminated remains under investigation.

As a precaution, the helmets worn by Mastracchio and Hopkins were outfitted with moisture-absorbent pads and snorkels that could draw air from the belly of the spacesuits in case the problem recurred. No leaks were reported, Navias said.

NASA decided to forego a third spacewalk to relocate the failed pump onto a more permanent storage pallet, officials said.

Two Russian cosmonauts, meanwhile, are planning to conduct a spacewalk on Friday to install a pair of high-fidelity cameras outside the Zvezda service module, part of a Canadian commercial television project. They also will swap out several science experiments.


http://news.yahoo.com/astronauts-leave-space-station-replace-cooling-pump-135447793.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spacewalking Astronauts Gift Space Station with Christmas Eve Cooling Pump Fix
SPACE.com
By Robert Z. Pearlman, SPACE.com Contributor  5 hours ago



NASA's Mike Hopkins holds the space station's new pump module while floating past a Russian Soyuz



HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have received a gift just in time for Christmas: a new pump module to repair their ailing cooling system and to restore the outpost to full power.

NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins embarked on their second spacewalk together, setting out at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT) on Tuesday (Dec. 24) to complete the work they began Saturday to remove and replace an ammonia pump module with a faulty flow control valve.

“It's like Christmas morning, opening a little present here,” Mastracchio said early in the spacewalk, as he rummaged through a bag for tools to help in installing the new pump. [See photos from the Christmas Eve spacewalk]

The Christmas Eve EVA — extravehicular activity, NASA’s term for a spacewalk — had the two astronauts retrieve a spare of the refrigerator-size cooling system device and install it on the space station’s starboard, or right, side backbone truss. The 780-pound (355 kg) pump module replaced a faulty unit Mastracchio and Hopkins successfully and speedily removed three days ago.

The removal, which came just 10 days after a valve inside the module ceased working properly, was originally slated to be part of this second outing, but Mastracchio and Hopkins made quick work of disconnecting the degraded unit, allowing them the time to also remove and stow the module during the spacewalk Saturday.

Their get-ahead work negated the need for a planned third spacewalk.


Pump module in place

The failure of the flow control valve, which regulates the temperature of the ammonia coolant passing through the pump, resulted in restricting the space station to the use of just half of its cooling loop system needed to maintain equipment temperatures inside and outside of the outpost. Non-critical systems and science experiment hardware in two of the station’s laboratories have been without power since the valve malfunctioned on Dec. 11.



NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins flies above Peru while attached to the station's robotic arm


The new pump module, installed by Mastracchio and Hopkins on Tuesday, was to return the space station to its full cooling and power capacity.

Trading spaces since their spacewalk together on Saturday, Hopkins, riding the end of the station’s robotic arm, and Mastracchio working alongside him, retrieved the spare pump module from the station’s External Stowage Platform 3 (ESP-3) and installed it in the slot on the truss they earlier emptied of the faulty unit.

“Mike, I think you're in charge now of the pump module,” Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata radioed Hopkins as he controlled the robotic arm to pull Hopkins and the spare pump module away from the stowage platform. “It looks good, you're doing a great job, it looks beautiful."

The pump module was bolted into place at 10:08 a.m. EST (1508 GMT), 3 hours and 15 minutes into the spacewalk.


‘Snow’ on Christmas Eve

The two astronauts then set about connecting five electrical and four fluid lines linking the new module to the station’s systems.  In the process, the pair ran into some trouble freeing one of the so-called “quick disconnect” lines from a temporary jumper box that the two installed during Saturday’s spacewalk.



NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins prepares to attach himself to the International Space Station's robotic arm


“One thing we never expected,” Mastracchio observed.

“Getting it off the jumper box?” Hopkins replied.

“Yeah,” Mastracchio said.

They were ultimately able to free the stubborn line using some additional tools. In the process, they released some frozen ammonia flakes, or “snow.”

“About one little snowflake a second,” Mastracchio reported to Mission Control, adding that the flakes did make contact with both astronauts’ spacesuits, a contamination concern.

“Big chunks, big chunks,” Mastracchio noted as Mission Control sent a command to vent the line. “Some little ones, some big ones.”

As the line was vented, the astronauts confirmed it had “stopped snowing” and they proceeded with connecting it and the remaining lines to the new pump module. All nine lines were connected at about 12:45 p.m. EST (1645 GMT), 5 hours and 52 minutes into the spacewalk.

“Houston you have a new pump module,” Mastracchio radioed Mission Control.

As a result of being exposed to ammonia, and after cleaning up their worksites, the astronauts needed to spend some time performing a “bake out,” to ensure that any remnants of the frozen coolant flakes evaporate.


Second eve EVA

With the new pump module in place and its lines connected, flight controllers on the ground will work on Tuesday evening to test the unit and then, if everything checks out, begin reintegrating it into the space station’s cooling system over the next day.

Tuesday’s spacewalk marked Mastracchio’s eighth career EVA and Hopkins’ second. It was the 176th spacewalk devoted to the assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station and the 10th such outing in 2013.

One more spacewalk this year is scheduled for Friday (Dec. 27) by cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy to install a pair of high-fidelity cameras and refresh several experiment packages on the exterior of the Russian segment of the station.

Tuesday’s EVA was only the second Christmas Eve spacewalk conducted in history.  Fourteen years ago, space shuttle Discovery astronauts Steve Smith and John Grunsfeld conducted an 8-hour, 8-minute excursion on Dec. 24, 1999 to upgrade and install new insulation on the Hubble Space Telescope.


http://news.yahoo.com/spacewalking-astronauts-gift-space-station-christmas-eve-cooling-182351708.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Astronauts make rare Christmas Eve spacewalk
Associated Press
By MARCIA DUNN  5 hours ago



In this image made from video provided by NASA, astronaut Rick Mastracchio performs a space walk outside the International Space Station on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins ventured out of the station to try to revive a crippled cooling line. (AP Photo/NASA)



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Astronauts wrapped up urgent space station repairs during a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk Tuesday, braving a "mini blizzard" of noxious ammonia as they popped in a new pump.

It was the second spacewalk in four days for U.S. astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins, and only the second Christmas Eve spacewalk in NASA history.

NASA ordered up the spacewalks to revive a critical cooling loop at the International Space Station. All nonessential equipment had to be turned off when the line conked out Dec. 11, and many science experiments halted.

With Tuesday's success, the cooling system should be restored and all equipment back up and running by this weekend, according to NASA.

Mastracchio and Hopkins removed the faulty ammonia pump during Saturday's outing. On Tuesday, they installed the fresh pump.

Standing on the end of the station's main robotic arm, Hopkins clutched the 780-pound, refrigerator-size pump with both hands as he headed toward its installation spot, and then slid it in. An astronaut working inside, Japan's Koichi Wakata, gingerly steered the arm and its precious load.

"Mike Hopkins taking a special sleigh ride on this Christmas Eve," Mission Control commentator Rob Navias said as the space station soared over the Pacific.

It was slow going because of a balky ammonia fluid line that sent frozen flakes of the extremely toxic substance straight at the men — "a mini blizzard," as Mission Control called it. The spacewalkers reported being surrounded by big chunks of the stuff that bounced off equipment and, in all probability, their suits.

The ammonia needed to dissipate from their suits before the pair returned inside, to avoid further contamination.



The International Space Station fully configured in 2013. (NASA)


"Wow," Hopkins sighed after the fourth and final fluid line was hooked to the new pump. The electrical hookups went more smoothly, and six hours into the spacewalk, Hopkins finally called down, "Houston, you've got yourself a new pump module."

Christmas references filled the radio waves, as the action unfolded 260 miles above the planet.

"It's like Christmas morning opening up a little present here," Mastracchio said as he checked his toolkit. Later, as he worked to remove the spare pump from its storage shelf, he commented: "Now it really feels like I'm unwrapping a present."

Mission Control in Houston was in a festive mood, despite the gravity of the situation. Tabletop Christmas trees, Santa dolls and red Santa caps decorated the desks.

NASA's only previous Christmas Eve spacewalk occurred in 1999 during a Hubble Space Telescope repair mission.

But NASA's most memorable Christmas Eve was back on Dec. 24, 1968. Apollo 8 astronauts read from Genesis, the first book of the Bible, as they orbited the moon on mankind's first lunar flight.

A bad valve in the ammonia pump caused the latest breakdown.

Another team of spacewalking astronauts installed that pump just three years ago, and engineers are perplexed as to why it didn't last longer. NASA hopes to salvage it in the years ahead.

The 2010 replacement required three spacewalks because of the difficulty in removing pressurized ammonia fluid lines. But this time, the astronauts managed to squeeze everything into two after NASA reduced the pressure and simplified the task.

Mission Control planned to wait until Tuesday evening before fully activating the new pump, but initial testing showed everything working well. The two-line cooling system uses ammonia to dispel heat generated by on-board equipment; only one loop was disabled by the breakdown.

The second spacewalk was supposed to take place Monday, but it was delayed a day to give Mastracchio time to switch to another suit. He inadvertently hit a water switch in the air lock at the end of Saturday's excursion, and a bit of water encroached on a cooling device in the backpack of his suit, making it unusable.

Otherwise, the suits remained dry during both spacewalks. Last July, an astronaut almost drowned when water from his suit's cooling system flooded his helmet. Makeshift snorkels and absorbent pads were added to the suits as a precaution.

A Moscow-led spacewalk, meanwhile, is set for Friday. Two Russian crew members will install new cameras and fresh experiments outside.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html


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