![\"2016-10-26-152641\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-26-152641-350x236.jpg\")
EVAs are a critical element for keeping the Station operational.<\/p>\nAn investigation into the water leak in Tim Kopra\u2019s Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) \u2013 which forced the early termination of EVA-35 in January \u2013 has revealed no hardware issues with the suit. The news comes as the ISS gears up for a series of critical EVAs that will replace the batteries on the Station\u2019s solar arrays.<\/p>\n
EVA-35:<\/p>\n
International Space Station (ISS) manager Kirk Shireman was providing an overview to the NASA\u2019s oversight body, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) \u2013 portraying an orbital outpost in good health as it continues to work in its new era of utilization, following years of assembly.<\/p>\n
EVAs are a critical element for keeping the Station operational.<\/p>\n
Recent EVAs also looked to the future, with the installation of a new docking port \u2013 to which Commercial Crew vehicles will dock in the near future \u2013 successfully completed this summer.<\/p>\n
The new port \u2013 one of two International Docking Adaptors to be installed on the Station \u2013 will allow for an increase in Station utilization, via the expected increase of the ISS crew size to seven.<\/p>\n
However, spacewalks also provide some of the greatest risks to astronauts, with the US EVA-35, conducted back in January, terminated ahead of schedule for safety reasons.<\/p>\n
The spacewalk successfully replaced a failed electrical component, called the Sequential Shunt Unit (SSU), in order to restore the station to its full power generation capacity.<\/p>\n
The spacewalk was the first ever to be conducted by a British astronaut, Tim Peake. However, due to water entering \u201cEV1\u201d Tim Kopra\u2019s helmet \u2013 a potentially life-threatening incident \u2013 the EVA was terminated ahead of the pre-planned schedule.<\/p>\n
Astronomy (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Due to well-practised procedures, both spacewalkers safely made it back into the Quest Airlock around two hours earlier than scheduled \u2013 with all primary tasks complete. No emergency ingress was required.<\/p>\n NASA had already focused on the smoking gun of \u201csublimator carry-over\u201d, where excess water from the sublimator overwhelms the pick-up tubes \u2013 known as \u201cslurper tubes\u201d \u2013 that are supposed to return water back to the cooling loop.<\/p>\n However, the reason for the issue was yet to be fully understood. Issues with how the suits are stored when not in use was investigated, which could be deemed a wider issue and potentially related to the anomaly where four times as much water entered Luca Parmitano\u2019s helmet \u2013 in what was a far more serious incident.<\/p>\n The EMUs are stored in the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM). However, the storage of some \u201chygiene products\u201d in the module was deemed as a possible source of contaminating chemicals. The impact of such chemicals on the hydrophilic coating of the suit\u2019s inner working was already known, which is why there are strict rules on astronauts using items such as after-shave and lotions.<\/p>\n Mr. Shireman told the ASAP that the conclusion reached was that the incident was not an example of the same failure as in the previous water-in-the-helmet instance.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this case, the likely cause was a combination of both environmental and operational factors that blocked outlet port slurper holes. The finding was that the amount of water was considerably smaller than before, and the conclusion reached was that this was a non-hazardous occurrence, even if it occurs in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, the NASA team recommended a \u201cgo\u201d for nominal and planned EVAs. Two EVAs, with special contingency allowances, were conducted since EVA-35, both without issue.<\/p>\n The positive news on the EMUs is a boost ahead of a critical set of EVAs that will play into the Station\u2019s longevity.<\/p>\n Mr. Shireman noted that if things go well, the work might be able to be completed in two EVAs, but plans are in place for six EVAs if required. The amount of EVAs is dependant on how the Canadian robot Dextre (SPDM) performs in its assistance of the task.<\/p>\n A recent test \u2013 known as the \u201cMain Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) Demonstration\u201d \u2013 was designed to validate the robotic transfer of battery style Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs) prior to the delivery of the new ISS batteries.<\/p>\n The goal was to validate the plans to reduce the number of EVAs required to install the batteries to just two spacewalks.<\/p>\n The batteries will be delivered to the Station on the delayed HTV-6 mission, now scheduled for December 9.<\/p>\n Such is the vital nature of the successful replacement of the batteries, the ASAP Panel queried the ISS Program about its contingency planning in the event of a launch failure with the Japanese craft.<\/p>\n NASA noted the Program is prepared and has other batteries available and a production line is in place.<\/p>\n (Images: NASA, JAXA and L2 including renders from L2 artist Nathan Koga \u2013 The full gallery of Nathan\u2019s (SpaceX Dragon to ITS, SLS, Commercial Crew and more) L2 images can be *found here*)<\/p>\n (To join L2, click here: \/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An investigation into the water leak in Tim Kopra\u2019s Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) \u2013 which forced the early termination of EVA-35 in January \u2013 has revealed no hardware issues with the suit. The news comes as the ISS gears up for a series of critical EVAs that will replace the batteries on the Station\u2019s solar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30287,"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":[567,1839,233],"class_list":["post-38931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-eva","tag-htv","tag-iss"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38931"}],"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=38931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2016-10-26-165052\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-26-165052-350x247.jpg\")
Tim Kopra\u2019s suit (EMU 3011) was immediately investigated via the collection of suit samples during the post-EVA procedures. The suit was then returned back to Earth onboard the CRS-8 Dragon spacecraft, in order to aid the Anomaly Resolution Team (ART) meetings that had already begun at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Z78.jpg\")
However, thanks to the suit being returned to Earth on the Dragon, the problem with Kopra\u2019s suit was deemed to be more an unfortunate coincidence, as opposed to a wider issue with the EMUs on Station.<\/p>\n![\"2016-02-11-181804\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/2016-02-11-181804-350x241.jpg\")
The EVAs will involve the first-ever changeout of the large solar array batteries. The six lithium-ion batteries will replace 12 aging nickel-hydrogen power packs.<\/p>\n![\"2016-10-26-164253\"](\"\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-10-26-164253-350x237.jpg\")
\u201cThe existing batteries are being replaced with a newer, improved version \u2013 smaller, lighter, and more capable. The existing batteries are probably good until mid- to late-2017, although it is hard to predict lifetimes on that type of hardware,\u201d added the ASAP minutes.<\/p>\n