Space & Astronomy

Astronauts to undertake emergency spacewalk

By T.K. Randall
May 22, 2017

Image: International Space Station
Credit: (PD) NASA The box, which is understood to have failed completely, is one of two systems responsible for controlling radiators, solar arrays, cooling loops and other hardware aboard the station.

Beginning at around 8am EDT and lasting for two hours, the spacewalk will be undertaken by Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Jack Fischer.

Fortunately though, the broken relay is not believed to have put the crew in any danger."The cause of the MDM failure is not known," NASA wrote in a blog post.

"After a review of spacewalk preparations and crew readiness throughout the day Sunday, the decision was made to press ahead with the spacewalk on Tuesday."

The spacewalk will be the tenth for Whitson who recently broke the record for the longest cumulative time spent in space for a US astronaut. At 57, she is also the oldest woman ever to go in to space.

Source: Economic Times

Tags: Spacewalk, ISS