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Spacewalk, Or Backup Valve? NASA Works The Space Station Cooling Problem
The International Space Station as seen by the departing STS-134 crew aboard space shuttle Endeavour in May 2011. Credit: NASA
While Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins get their spacesuits and the Quest airlock ready in case they need to do a spacewalk to fix a cooling problem on board the station, NASA engineers have come up with an alternate proposal that could allow an interim fix from the ground.
A faulty flow control valve inside an external pump caused one of the station’s two main cooling loops to shut down automatically on Wednesday when the loop became too cold. This forced NASA to power down noncritical systems and some experiments as they moved the most needed systems on to a single loop.
After playing with the balky valve for several days, controllers determined it can’t be worked normally. Yet there is another valve nearby that possibly can.
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Read the rest of Spacewalk, Or Backup Valve? NASA Works The Space Station Cooling Problem (372 words)
© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |
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Post tags: ammonia, cooling problem, expedition 24, expedition 38
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/107235/spacewalk-or-backup-valve-nasa-works-the-space-station-cooling-problem/
