NASA poised to resume spacewalks after investigating scary water leak

NASA astronauts prepare for another spacewalk. The space agency halted activity outside the vehicle while investigating a potentially life-threatening problem with the suits, but NASA says Spacewalks outside the International Space Station can resume.

On Tuesday, NASA announced that it has completed an investigation into the cause of a Monisture layer building right down to the astronauts’ helmets on spacewalks. The flight readiness review confirmed that there were no hardware failures in the spacesuits and that the “cause of the water in the helmet was likely due to integrated system performance, where multiple variables such as crew effort and crew cooling settings resulted in the generation of comparatively larger than normal amounts of condensation within the system,” NASA explained.

After implementing several fixes, NASA has three upcoming spacewalks planned to complete them Installations of solar systems outside the ISS. The first of the three spacewalks will take place in mid-November, according to NASA.

The last spacewalk before the break took place on March 23, when European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer noticed some water in his visor. The astronaut took photos for the ground control team for analysis, but the space agency said the issue posed no threat to Maurer’s life at the time. Maurer and NASA astronaut Raja Chari were able to complete their seven-hour spacewalk outside of the orbit station and prepare for the installation of the iROSA solar system.

NASA later declared the incident a “close call” and immediately halted all upcoming spacewalks until the issue was investigated. It was the space suit that Maurer was wearing at the time returned to Earth for analysis along with water samples. “During the investigation, the space station team performed a detailed test, dismantling and evaluation of the water samples and suit hardware to determine what led to the observed greater-than-normal water in the helmet,” NASA wrote in the statement.

Based on its findings, the team updated operational procedures and set up new mitigation hardware to prevent water from pooling inside the helmet, as well as absorbing any water that might seep in.

The latest incident wasn’t the first time astronauts have discovered water in their helmets during maintenance work outside the ISS. Back in 2013, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano noticed a water leak in his helmet that forced an early recap of the spacewalk. Parmitano was able to safely re-enter the ISS airlock but had difficulty breathing as 1.5 liters of water had built up in his helmet.

The same space suit was used by another astronaut two years later –and it nearly drowned him in space. After completing a spacewalk, NASA astronaut Terry Virts noticed free-floating water droplets and a damp absorbent pad in his helmet.

The space suits worn by astronauts on board the ISS are over 40 years old and only 18 usable space suits are included on the orbiting space station today, according to a 2017 report.

NASA began developing new spacesuits for astronauts to wear outside the ISS in 2019 and for the agency’s upcoming missions Artemis Missions to the moon, but Funding shortages have delayed the use of the suits. Instead, the space agency recently Partnership with two private US companies, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to develop their next generation space suits. However, the new space suits won’t be ready until 2025. Meanwhile, astronauts will be forced to don the same spacesuits and maybe be on the lookoutOut for water drops in their helmets.

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