Two astronauts successfully complete a walk of urgency to ... - The World

“Houston, we have a problem …” The legendary phrase summarizes the Apollo 13 mission have faced the challenge successfully on Saturday U.S. astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins. Both have successfully completed a short five and a half hours outside the International Space Station (ISS) to start repairing the cooling system of the orbital complex.

Astronauts got

remove the pump module having a broken valve flow, so they returned to the station with much of the work done. Initially, this operation is not going to make until Monday 23, but the good performance of Mastracchio and Hopkins allowed the Mission Control at NASA Houston give green light to work adelantasen totally desmontasen pump module .

Thus

could conclude replacement pump out Monday and not have to make a third hike that was scheduled for Friday, Christmas Day.

two astronauts were helped from within by his Japanese counterpart Watkata Koichi, who manipulated a robotic arm from inside the ISS.

fault in the cooling system has had serious consequences for the operation of the ISS at the moment, but forced to suspend all non-essential operations of the research laboratory within the space outpost , orbiting 420 miles above Earth.

Mastracchio

addition, Hopkins Watkata and current ISS crew compose Russian Oleg Kotov, with the rank of major, Mikhail Tyurin and Sergey Ryazanskiy.

postponed Release

The problem with a valve in the cooling system pumps ISS began on December 11, and after some attempts to solve it from Earth, mission managers decided to send astronauts to replace the module ammonia, which is the size of a home refrigerator.

The decision to conduct several days of extravehicular work put on hold the launch, scheduled for December 18, the Cygnus cargo capsule, Antares rocket with the private firm Orbital Sciences.

ISS

involved 15 countries and has been built primarily with transportation provided for three decades by the U.S. shuttles, which were removed in 2011. Since then the relief crew and moving supplies to the ISS, and waste and experiments has been conducted with Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

valve failed

The U.S. government has opened the orbital exploration to the private sector and Cygnus capsule is one of those initiatives. NASA said the Antares rocket and its load probably be launched after January 13 .

While the six astronauts on the ISS now reside are not endangered by the problem in the cooling system have been trimmed activities aboard the orbital outpost. If another problem disable the second section of the cooling system should be evacuated crew on a Soyuz to return to Earth.

The ISS, which orbits the Earth about 385 kilometers and 27,900 kilometers per hour , is equipped with two independent, external refrigeration systems that use ammonia to dissipate the heat generated by the electrical systems laboratory.

Cooling is crucial to the operations of the ISS and while one of the devices can support critical systems and maintain the laboratory operations needed both to avoid blackouts nonessential equipment.

Mastracchio and Hopkins have managed to remove the pump module having a flow valve failed, but on your next ride should replace it with a spare that is stored in the outer shelf of the ISS. The module, which weighs 350 kilograms is located in the segment starboard beam energy of the ISS. The other module is in port on the same beam.