Astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson (Tracy Caldwell Dyson) and Michael Barratt (Mike Barratt) had to go into space on July 2, but that event has now been postponed to the end of July. This was announced by NASA representatives on June 28.
The reason for the delay – the need for additional time to investigate the incident that occurred during the last spacewalk on June 24. At that time, the astronauts were supposed to work outside the ISS for about 6.5 hours, but they had to interrupt their work after 31 minutes due to a coolant leak in Dyson's spacesuit. Ground teams have not yet determined the cause of the leak.
“With this in mind, we have now moved the date of the next spacewalk to the end of July. We want to give the team enough time to understand what happened and make sure that there will be no changes to the work of the astronauts,— said Bill Spetch (), NASA's International Space Station program operations integration manager, during a press conference.
In the future, Dyson and Barratt will again participate in the delayed spacewalk. They will perform “replacement and installation of equipment, preparation for future upgrades of science equipment and photo inspection of the station's pipelines,” NASA representatives wrote in their blog on June 27.
Coolant leaks are a regular problem during spacewalks. on the ISS. For example, in March 2022, the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer (Matthias Maurer) noticed the accumulation of water in his helmet after a long spacewalk. This problem led to a seven-month hiatus from spacewalks. In 2013, fellow ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced an even more terrifying leak: water began to fill his helmet during a spacewalk, forcing him to hastily return to the ISS.
The press briefing also discussed the status of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which arrived at the ISS on June 6 as part of its first manned flight. Initially, the Starliner's stay in orbit was supposed to last only a week, but NASA and Boeing several times continued the mission to find out the cause of helium leaks and engine problems that occurred on the spacecraft.