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NASA waves off spacewalk after astronaut suit springs a leak

NASA waves off spacewalk after astronaut suit springs a leak | CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/24/science/spacewalk-astronauts-canceled-iss-space-station-scn/index.html

US astronauts Tracy Dyson and Mike Barratt abandoned plans to exit the International Space Station on Monday to conduct maintenance due to a spacesuit malfunction.

NASA waves off spacewalk after astronaut suit springs a leak | CNN

The delayed spacewalk is only the latest in a string of setbacks around operations on the International Space Station in recent weeks.

This marks the second spacewalk in recent days that has been abruptly called off due to spacesuit issues.

In addition to the aborted Monday spacewalk, the federal agency has been aiming to carry out another on July 2 — before giving Boeing’s Starliner capsule the green light to undock from the orbiting laboratory and make its return home.

The Starliner spacecraft has been on its first crewed test flight to the space station. But the vehicle encountered several key issues during the first leg of its trip, including springing helium leaks and experiencing thruster outages, that have delayed its return.

6 comments

kokesh

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Was being involved in the manufacturing process in some way?

Zipitydew

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No the EMU is made by a bunch of different suppliers. This has nothing to do with Boeing. But CNN is trash (even moreso than in the past) and will tag anything possible about Boeing right now to get clicks. CNN got bought a couple years back with new management's goal being to turn it into another Fox news.

kamenlady

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The suits of both astronauts, that arrived with the Boeing vessel, failed or leaked.

Do astronauts bring their own spacesuits or are there always a number of spacesuits on the station?

Edit: ~~They are Boeing spacesuits~~

Edit 2: the suits presented in the article are the interior spacesuits, not the space walk kind of suit.

Zipitydew

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There are always some on ISS. Somewhere from 4-6 is typical from what I've read. In a mix of piece sizes too. The EMU is modular enough to fit most body sizes by matching different leg and torso combos.

There are only around 18 or so total suits too. They get swapped around from Earth to ISS regularly for refurbishment.

kamenlady

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Reading your comment made me remember seeing a documentary about the suits. They are also pretty old, or?

Zipitydew

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Yep. They were originally part of the Shuttle program. They cost around $20M each so NASA has kept them going.