Dec 14 (Reuters) – A routine spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) was called off as it was about to begin after flight controllers noticed a stream of liquid escaping from a docked Soyuz spacecraft, a NASA webcast showed.
A NASA commentator described the fluid spray, which was visible in NASA’s live video as a torrent of snowflake-like particles emanating from the rear section of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule, was described by a NASA commentator as a coolant leak.
NASA said none of the seven current International Space Station (ISS) crew members – three Russian cosmonauts, three American NASA astronauts and one Japanese astronaut – were ever in danger.
The mishap occurred just as two of the cosmonauts, crew commander Sergey Prokopyev and flight engineer Dimitri Petelin, were preparing for a planned spacewalk to move a radiator from one module to another on the Russian segment of the ISS
An official from Russia’s mission control operations near Moscow was heard telling Prokopyev and Petelin in a radio transmission that their spacewalk was being canceled while engineers worked to determine the nature and source of the leak.
NASA live-streaming commentator Rob Navias, broadcasting from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, also said the spacewalk was suspended because of the leak, which he said started no at 7:45 pm EST (0145 GMT Thursday).
A stream of particles, which NASA says appears to be liquid and possibly refrigerant, exits the Soyuz spacecraft on the International Space Station, forcing the delay of a planned routine spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts on December 14, 2022 in this still image taken from video. NASA TV/Handout via REUTERS
Navias said the Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the space station in September, carrying Prokopyev, Petelin and US astronaut Frank Rubio to the ISS, and has remained attached to the Earth side of the orbiting laboratory.
Wednesday’s planned spacewalk was postponed once before, in late November, because of faulty coolant pumps in the cosmonauts’ spacesuits, Navias said.
The spacewalk was to be the 12th this year on the ISS and the 257th in the platform’s 22-year history for assembly, maintenance and upgrade work, according to NASA.
Navias said it was too early to know what implications the leak might have for the integrity of that spacecraft and whether it might pose any difficulty in returning the crew to Earth at the end of their mission.
Five other spacecraft are stationed at the space station: two SpaceX capsules (a Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon), a Northrop Grumman Cygnus space cargo ship, and two Russian resupply ships, Progress 81 and Progress 82.
Spanning the length of an American football field and orbiting about 250 miles above Earth, the ISS has been continuously occupied since 2000, operated by a US-Russia-led partnership that includes Canada , Japan and 11 European countries.
Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington. Editing by Gerry Doyle
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