| USA TODAY | - |
NASA
astronauts performed the first of a series of urgent repair spacewalks
Saturday to revive a crippled cooling line at the International Space
Station.
NASA Astronauts End Spacewalk Early After 5 Hours
Dec. 21, 2013
Two American astronauts conducted an urgent repair outside the International Space Station Saturday during a spacewalk that lasted five hours and 28 minutes.
The astronauts ran about an hour and a half ahead of what NASA expected to be their timeline.
Rich Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineers, began
at 7:01 am EST Saturday morning to replace a degraded ammonia pump
module associated with one of the station's two cooling loops that keeps
internal and external equipment cool, NASA said.
Mastracchio, the lead spacewalker, conducted six previous spacewalks,
and holds the record for the 14th longest number of hours of
spacewalking. Hopkins made his first spacewalk.
NASA's website offered the public a live video feed showing the astronauts and Mission Control.
During the repairs, the astronauts communicated with Mission Control
Houston about the procedure. The spacewalk ended after five hours, 28
minutes and 11 seconds, shorter than the 6.5-hour expected spacewalk,
because Mastracchio complained about chilly temperatures in his space
suit.
After the cooling line broke down on Dec. 11 at the International Space
Station, flight controllers tried but failed to fix the bad valve
through remote commanding, the Associated Press reported.
The 780-pound pump is about the size of a double-door refrigerator and
difficult to handle, with plumbing full of toxic ammonia, AP reported.
NASA said Saturday's spacewalk is the 175th in support of space station assembly and maintenance.
The work of the two astronauts on Saturday is part of a series of
spacewalks to replace the ammonia pump module. Today, they will prepare
it for removal, to be replaced with a space during a spacewalk on
Monday.
NASA says a third spacewalk would occur on Christmas Day if necessary to
finalize the installation of the replacement pump module. It would be
the first Christmas spacewalk for NASA.
The two astronauts received guidance on the spacewalk procedures from
NASA astronauts Doug Wheelock and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, who replaced the
ammonia pump at this same location during three spacewalks in August
2010, NASA said.
ABC News' Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.
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