We already reported that lately, a cooling line at the International Space Station (ISS) was leaked for which several systems of ISS went shut down and to repair that, space agency NASA has sent two American astronauts into space with snorkels. Today, those astronauts have fixed that critical cooling line leakage through 6.5-hour spacewalking.
Around 10 days ago, one of two identical cooling lines became too cold. NASA tried to fix the issue remotely but did not succeed. At then, NASA had no option, but to shut down all non-essential equipment inside the ISS and stop nearly all research happening at the ISS. Therefore, to fix that leakage, NASA has sent two American astronauts named Mike Hopkin and Rick Mastracchio into ISS to fix that critical cooling line leakage. Learning a bitter lesson from earlier unexpected incidence, these two astronauts have been sent with snorkels as a backup so that if ‘just in case’ water enters into their helmets, the astronauts can breathe.
On the other hand, repairing something in space through spacewalking is a pretty tough task. But Hopkin and Mastracchio along with another astronaut did their job smoothly through 6.5 hours of spacewalk. They replaced an ammonia pump containing a bad valve which was the reason for leakage. Note that the pump weighs 780-pound and it is equal in size to a double-door refrigerator. Here’s the video where you will see the astronauts fixing the critical cooling line leakage outside ISS through spacewalking.
To be noted that this fixing was the first of three scheduled spacewalks. The second stage of repairing will be done on Monday, while the third and last one will be done on Christmas Day.
Source: Arstechnica
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