{"id":12690,"date":"2020-01-25T18:12:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T10:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astronauts-finish-repairs-to-space-station-cosmic-ray-detector\/"},"modified":"2020-01-25T18:12:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-25T10:12:06","slug":"astronauts-finish-repairs-to-space-station-cosmic-ray-detector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astronauts-finish-repairs-to-space-station-cosmic-ray-detector\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts finish repairs to space station cosmic ray detector"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: <\/strong>Updated at 1:40 p.m. EST (1840 GMT) after end of spacewalk.<\/p>\n

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
This view was captured by a helmet camera on one of the astronauts on Saturday\u2019s spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During a fourth spacewalk Saturday to wrap up repairs of the coolant system in a $2 billion cosmic ray detector, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and Drew Morgan discovered a leak in one of eight coolant lines that were spliced into a new pump module during three earlier excursions.<\/p>\n

Tightening up the suspect connector did not solve the problem. So Parmitano tried one more time before returning to the International Space Station\u2019s airlock to retrieve a jumper and the tools needed to splice in a bypass if necessary, throwing a wrench into the crew\u2019s carefully scripted spacewalk timeline.<\/p>\n

But as it turned out, the bypass surgery was not needed. When he checked coolant line No. 5\u2019s leak indicator a second time an hour later, a red line in a pop-out fitting was no longer visible, indicating he had successfully fixed the leak the second time he tightened the fitting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo red! No leak!\u201d Parmitano exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK, close it quick,\u201d astronaut Jeremy Hansen replied from mission control. \u201cLet us all take a breath down here and I\u2019ll get back to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that, all eight coolant lines in the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer\u2019s critical thermal control system were ready for normal coolant system pressurization. Parmitano and Morgan were told to press ahead with work to re-install insulation that was removed earlier to gain access to the instrument\u2019s cooling system.<\/p>\n

Morgan and Parmitano, the same spacewalking surgeons who carried out a tricky coolant pump transplant last December, began their fourth joint spacewalk at 7:04 a.m. EST, switching their spacesuits to battery power while still inside the station\u2019s Quest airlock.<\/p>\n

After exiting the airlock, Morgan and Parmitano gathered tools and double-checked safety tethers before heading for the 7.5-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, mounted on the top side of the station\u2019s power truss just inboard of the lab\u2019s right-side solar arrays.<\/p>\n

Launched to the station in 2011 aboard the shuttle Endeavour, the AMS was built by an international team of researchers under the leadership of Nobel laureate Sam Ting. Using a 2,645-pound electromagnet, the instrument is designed to deflect electrically charged high-energy cosmic rays into an array of sensitive detectors.<\/p>\n

The goal of the research is to learn what happened to the antimatter presumably created during the big bang in equal measure with normal matter; to shed light on the nature of the unseen dark matter making up nearly a quarter of the known universe; and to learn more about the mysterious \u201cdark energy\u201d that appears to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.<\/p>\n

Originally designed to operate for just three years, the AMS chalked up eight years of operation before being sidelined by the sequential failures of four carbon dioxide coolant pumps. The coolant system is what allows the AMS detectors to achieve the required levels of sensitivity.<\/p>\n

To repair the system and extend the instrument\u2019s life through the end of the station program, engineers developed a four-spacewalk plan to install a custom-built 350-pound module containing four pumps and a reservoir of fresh carbon dioxide coolant.<\/p>\n

The AMS was not designed to be serviced in space, making the work particularly challenging. But during spacewalks last Nov. 15, 22 and Dec. 2, Morgan and Parmitano opened up the AMS, removed insulation, snipped eight coolant lines, installed the new pump module and spliced, or \u201cswaged,\u201d the coolant lines back into place.<\/p>\n

Special fittings were designed to pop open slightly, revealing a red line if the internal pressure indicated a leak. And that\u2019s what the crew saw when they checked line No. 5 Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuca, I\u2019ve gotta know, what made you pick (line) No. 5 first?\u201d Hansen radioed from mission control later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the closest,\u201d Parmitano replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was wondering if you had some sort of intuition or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I said, it\u2019s almost better to be lucky than good,\u201d Parmitano observed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no other way to do that to create more drama than giving us that look on the first one,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cI think everyone\u2019s heart stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I wonder what my flight surgeon saw on .. my heart rate,\u201d Parmitano said. \u201cIt either flat lined or spiked, one of the two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parmitano tightened up the fitting and then he and Morgan checked the other lines while waiting for a one-hour timer to expire. When checked again, the indicator in coolant line No. 5 still showed a leak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry to report I do have a leak,\u201d he said. \u201cIt looks like a large leak to me. (The indicator) is fully open.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then was asked to tighten up the fitting one additional turn and then, while waiting for another one-hour clock to tick down, return to the airlock to get a bypass jumper. But it wasn\u2019t needed.<\/p>\n

With the AMS repair work complete, the spacewalkers carried out a final \u201cget-ahead task\u201d \u2014 removing fogged filters from two external cameras \u2014 before heading back to the airlock to call it a day. The spacewalk ended at 1:20 p.m., for a duration of six hours and 16 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Astronauts Luca Parmitano and Drew Morgan pose for a photo with their spacesuits inside the space station\u2019s Quest airlock Jan. 21. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The unexpected work with coolant line No. 5 resulted in a few unusual lulls in the workflow, giving the spacewalkers a chance to marvel at the view of Earth more than 250 miles below during a night pass over Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if you guys are just bored out there just killing time, but you can tell me, a non-spacewalker, what it looks like in a night pass, looking down on the planet?\u201d Hansen asked. \u201cWhat do you see?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to ask you where we were, because I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever looked back down there at Earth during an EVA on a night pass,\u201d Morgan replied. \u201cI just turned my lights out, I\u2019m out here in the inky black above the ISS. Looking down I can see \u2026 (we just) flew over a lot of great night lights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like you\u2019re above the Sea of Japan just east of Asia there,\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it looked very heavily populated. So we\u2019ll be over Japan then shortly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can already see it below me,\u201d Parmitano chimed in<\/p>\n

\u201cUh huh, there it is. Yep, I saw it, down to the Sea of Japan, we just passed it,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cYou can see some fishing fleets out there in the Sea of Japan and then you can see the entire big island of Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Updated at 1:40 p.m. EST (1840 GMT) after end of spacewalk. STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION This view was captured by a helmet camera on one of the astronauts on Saturday\u2019s spacewalk. Credit: NASA TV\/Spaceflight Now During a fourth spacewalk Saturday to wrap up repairs of the coolant system in a $2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2377,2327,1690,2378,2379,558,2303,831],"class_list":["post-12690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alpha-magnetic-spectrometer","tag-andrew-morgan","tag-astrophysics","tag-cern","tag-cosmic-rays","tag-dark-energy","tag-dark-matter","tag-european-space-agency"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}