Mon, Jun 28, 2004
Next ISS Spacewalk: June 29th
Specialists in Moscow Sunday continued to analyze the cause of
an unexpectedly high rate of pressure loss in the primary oxygen
bottle on Astronaut Mike Fincke’s Russian space suit, which
terminated Thursday’s spacewalk after 14 minutes.
Planners have retargeted the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) for
no earlier than Tuesday, June 29, based on Russian ground station
communication coverage. That is expected to be confirmed Monday
following the next meeting of the International Space
Station’s (ISS) Mission Management Team.
Almost immediately after switching their Orlan spacesuits to
internal power and opening the Pirs Docking Compartment hatch to
start the EVA, Fincke and Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka
were told to terminate the spacewalk and begin troubleshooting
efforts to determine the cause of the pressure loss in the primary
oxygen tank on Fincke’s suit.
Once the ISS was reconfigured for normal operations, the
troubleshooting began, which stretched into today with additional
evaluations focusing on an injector switch that increases the flow
of oxygen into the Orlan spacesuit. The crew cycled the switch on
and off several times, while observing the suit injector
system’s status light.
Though investigation into the cause of the injector switch
problem will continue throughout the weekend, Russian flight
controllers assured the crew that its procedures were executed
properly and it could expect to use the same suits when the
spacewalk is rescheduled.
The objective of the spacewalk is to restore power to Control
Moment Gyroscope (CMG) #2 by replacing a Remote Power Controller
Module (RPCM). CMG #2 was taken off line April 21 by a failure of a
circuit breaker in the RPCM. Currently, because of the failure of
CMG #1 about two years ago, the attitude of the Station is being
adequately controlled by the two remaining CMGs.
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