NASA is moving up the first all-female spacewalk to this week because of a power system failure at the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA is moving up the first all-female spacewalk to this week because of a power system failure at the International Space Station (ISS).
It will be the first spacewalk by only women in more than a half-century of spacewalking.
A critical battery charger failed over the weekend, prompting the change, NASA officials said . The women will replace the broken component, rather than install new batteries, which was their original job.
Last week, astronauts conducted the first two of five spacewalks to replace old batteries that make up the station’s solar power network. The remaining spacewalks — originally scheduled for this week and next — have been delayed for at least another few weeks so engineers can determine why the battery charger failed. It’s the second such failure this year.
The devices regulate the amount of charge going to and from each battery. One didn’t kick in Friday night, preventing one of the three newly installed lithium-ion batteries from working. The balky charger is 19 years old; the one that failed in the spring was almost as old. Only three spares remain available.
“It’s absolutely a concern at this point when you don’t know what’s going on,” said , a space station manager.
“We’re still scratching our heads looking at the data. Hopefully, we can clear that up in relatively short order.”
Despite the slight loss of power, the orbiting lab and its six occupants are safe, according to NASA, and science operations are unaffected. The current situation is “manageable, but again not something that we would want to live with in the long term,” Todd told reporters.
NASA originally planned an all-female spacewalk last spring, but had to cancel it because of a shortage of readily available medium-size suits.He helped assemble an extra medium suit over the summer.
The upcoming spacewalk will be “absolutely ... an exciting event,” said , deputy chief of NASA’s astronaut corps.
“The fact that it will be two women just is a reflection of the fact that we have so many capable, qualified women in the office.”