In a remarkably tranquil chemical reaction for what sounds like the secret plan of an heroic space movie , NASAhas announcedit plans to send two astronauts on an emergency spacewalk on Tuesday , May 23 , to fix a problem after a information processing system loser on the ISS over the weekend .
The data relay race box was one of two onboard that control the operation of major system of rules across the International Space Station ( ISS ) , include radiators , solar arrays , cooling systems , and other equipment .
On Saturday dawn , the systemwas report to have failed , and after careful circumstance and thorough examination of a backup social unit by veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson , NASA gave the gullible light for an parking brake spacewalk to substitute the recrudesce one .
NASA was discriminating to stress nobody was in any danger at any decimal point , explicate in astatementthat the ISS ’ other multiplexer - demultiplexer ( MDM ) information relay box was running perfectly and the nonstarter has had little shock on place activities .
Station commander Whitson and fellow NASA spaceman and flight engineer Jack Fischer will conduct the spacewalk , which is expect to last around two hours , on Tuesday at 8 am EDT ( 1 post-mortem BST ) . In increase to supersede the failed box , Fischer will also install a pair of wireless communications antennas on the Destiny Lab , which had in the beginning been planned for the last spacewalk on May 12 .
As usual , NASA will begin live streaming the event on NASA Television at 6.30am EDT ( 11.30am BST ) .
The MDM that fail was installed with upgraded software on a spacewalk on March 30 by Whitson and flight of steps technologist Shane Kimbrough , who has since returned to Earth . The causal agency of the failure is not yet known , but it is think to be an internal failure of the box itself .
NASA ’s last emergency spacewalk was back in December 2015 , when two US spaceman had to leave the ISS and go outside to release the brakes on a golem ’s subdivision , accord toReuters .
This will be Fischer ’s 2nd spacewalk and Whitson ’s 10th – in April , Whitsonset the recordfor longest time spent in space by a US astronaut . It will also be the 201st spacewalk in funding of exert the ISS , so do n’t expect anyPassengersorTheMartianstyle ending . For these seasoned pros , it ’s just another walking in the common .
