The International Space Station (ISS) has only had two spacewalks in 2024, the most recent of which was in June. This is very little, as astronauts made 12 spacewalks each year from 2021 to 2023. This stems from an incident during a June spacewalk when NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson’s spacesuit leaked coolant. Dyson, along with Michael Barratt, was scheduled to make the 6.5-hour exit, but ice particles suddenly began to escape from the suit’s joint. NASA reported that nothing threatened the astronauts’ lives, so the exit was postponed. The agency then decided to temporarily stop all spacewalks so engineers could investigate the problem.
The seal and the assembly connecting the spacesuit to the ISS were replaced to correct the malfunction. The spacesuit was successfully tested, however, additional tests were conducted to finally confirm its safety. NASA’s ISS operations manager Bill Spetch said the agency planned to resume spacewalks in 2025. The exact date has not been determined yet, but Spetch said it was “only a matter of time” and depended on the arrival and departure schedules of the spacecraft and the astronauts’ research activities.
The spacesuit used in the incident was designed back in the 1970s for the space shuttle program and was used for ISS construction and maintenance work. However, the cooling system has failed on several occasions, most notably in March 2022, spacewalks were suspended for seven months due to water in the helmet. The most dangerous incident occurred in 2013 when Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano’s helmet filled with water during a spacewalk.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos has also suspended its spacewalks on the ISS. This is probably a precautionary measure to scrutinize their own spacesuits and spacewalk-related systems to ensure they are in good working condition and safe.
NASA is now working on a new, more comfortable model of the spacesuit that Jared Isaacman tested on the Polaris Dawn mission.
Previously, we reported on the history of spacesuits.
Provided by space.com
