American Spacesuits Not Working

NASA decided Monday that U.S. spacesuits on the international space station are unusable and ordered the crew to use Russian gear instead, adding considerable time and distance to a critical spacewalk next month.

The crew wanted to wear American suits and go out the much-closer U.S. hatch to get to a broken power supply unit on the exterior of the space station, but a cooling problem with the outfits made that impossible.

The mid-June spacewalk involves replacing a power control and circuit breaker box that last month shut down one of the gyroscopes that keeps the massive orbiting laboratory in the correct orientation. Only two of the four U.S. gyroscopes are working, the bare minimum; the first one shut down two years ago and cannot be replaced until NASA’s shuttles fly again.

Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and astronaut Michael Fincke spent the past few days trying to get water flowing properly to Padalka’s American spacesuit for cooling. They could not get a spare U.S. spacesuit to work, either. So with only one good U.S. spacesuit on board, NASA managers decided to use Russian suits and conduct the spacewalk from the Russian side of the station.

The crewmen need to leave from the Russian side because the Russian spacesuits are not compatible with communication equipment in the U.S. air lock.

The Russian hatch is about 80 feet from the bad circuit breaker, located on the American side of the station; the U.S. hatch is 30 feet away.

Fincke and Padalka will use a 50-foot Russian-built telescoping boom to get partway there, and will be on the lookout for antennas and other protruding hazards. “It’s not as dangerous as a minefield by any means,” Fincke said. “It’s just going to take a fair amount of time to get there and to come back.”

NASA engineers, meanwhile, are trying to figure out what is wrong with the two U.S. spacesuits, unused for more than a year. Replacement parts are limited because of the grounding of the shuttle fleet after the Columbia disaster.

A Russian cargo ship was scheduled to blast off Tuesday, carrying much-needed supplies.

Until shuttle flights resume next spring, at the earliest, station astronauts will likely be limited to four Russian spacesuits for outside work. Two are brand new; one malfunctioned during a spacewalk by the previous crew in February, but the cooling problem -- a crimped water line -- has since been fixed.

Fincke and Padalka are one month into a six-month stay.

Aside from the failed circuit breaker, the bad suits and some burned-out lights, “we feel really comfortable. We really like this space station. It is a masterpiece,” Fincke said.