The astronaut's spacewalks from the ISS have been temporarily suspended after a coolant leak from the external radiator circuit on the Russian module "Science". The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that it is postponing the next two spacewalks for astronauts Laurel O'Hara, Andreas Mogensen and Jasmine Mogbeli until the end of the accident cause analysis.
Astronauts were supposed to go into open space on October 12 and October 21. But NASA engineers and the team of specialists responsible for flight management cancelled their exits until the end of the accident data study.
At present, the leak has stopped, as reported by Roscosmos dispatchers and evidenced by images from NASA's external station cameras, which only show residual drops of coolant. The main radiator on the "Science" continues to operate normally, providing full cooling of the module without any consequences for the crew or the operation of the space station.
NASA Press Office
Accident on "Science"
On Monday, October 9, Roscosmos reported that a coolant leak occurred on the "Science" module of the Russian segment of the ISS from the external radiator circuit. Roscosmos said that there is no threat to the crew or the station, later, on October 11, it became known that the leak has stopped.
A leak was detected from the additional radiator, which was installed recently. This radiator was delivered earlier than the module, it seems, in 2010, and was actually only installed and connected to the hydraulic system this summer. The radiator is designed for heat dissipation, but such heat dissipation is not really required now. The system consists of two duplicated circuits, and it was from one of these two circuits, from the additional and normal one, that the coolant leak occurred. The leak was registered both visually and by telemetry, there are records from both external cameras and through the windows.
Sergey Krikalev, Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs
According to Roscosmos, Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will go into open space on October 25. They will install a radar on the "Science" module for observing the Earth's surface and launch the student nanosatellite "Parus-MGTU".
Their task now includes the inspection of the leak location and its photography. The astronauts' work will help experts on Earth to find out the causes of the incident. There is no information about the cancellation of their exit yet.