Yesterday, Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins completed the first spacewalk, in technical terms extravehicular activity (EVA), to repair the cooling system of the International Space Station. This first phase lasted “only” 5 hours and 28 minutes, which is a short time for an operation of that kind since the two have ended it an hour earlier than expected.

The failure of the pump that controls one of the two loops of circulation of ammonia used as a refrigerant on the International Space Station happened on December 11. The first attempts to control the flow of ammonia using a different valve of that module failed so it was decided to perform a spacewalk to replace it.

There was no immediate danger to the crew of the International Space Station but a repair was necessary in order to have a fully functioning air conditioning system. Meanwhile, non-crytical systems and various scientific experiments were put offline to avoid overloading the circulation system that was still running.

Yesterday, Mike Hopkins used the space suit that last July had a water leak that led to abort a previous spacewalk. Some components were replaced and to be safe they installed some absorbent pads and a plastic tube that in the case of new issues would allow the astronaut to breathe the air in the lower part of the suit, a kind of snorkel.

Yesterday’s removal of the degraded pump was carried out with no problems, so much that was completed earlier than expected. Originally, moving the pump to another location was scheduled for tomorrow but Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins have managed to do it yesterday, assisted by Koichi Wakata, who controlled the robotic arm from inside the International Space Station.

The next spacewalk, which aims to install the new pump module, was scheduled for tomorrow, but returning to the Station, astronaut Rick Mastracchio had a possible problem with his space suit. A possible water infiltration convinced NASA’s Mission Control team at Johnson Space Center in Houston to decide that Mastracchio will use a spare spacesuit.

The extra day will give Rick Mastracchio time to make the adjustments to the space suit required to be able to adapt it to his size. If all goes well, on Tuesday they’ll perform the spacewalk that will solve the problem permanently.

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