NASA astronaut Terry Wirz and his colleague Barry “Butch” Wilmore just completed a seven-hour spacewalk, the purpose of which was to modernize the space station. As soon as the astronauts entered the airlock chamber, Wirtz reported detecting a small water leak. Some of the water could be seen on the faceplate of his helmet.
A NASA spokeswoman, Rob Navias, told the agency that there are no signs of water leaks during a spacewalk, and that at this moment there is no threat to the astronauts’s life and health. After the “tour” is completed for 6 hours and 43 minutes, they are in a great mood.
At the same time, Wirts noted that he removed about 15 ml of water from a helmet using a syringe. In addition, the water seemed to come from the inside of the suit, and not from a reservoir of drinking water. It has some chemical taste and resembles technical water. At the same time, NASA reacts extremely seriously to any message about water getting into the helmets of space suits, as it represents a danger for astronauts who work in conditions of weightlessness. For example, in 2013, the Italian astronaut Luca Salvo Parmitano, who had a serious water leakage into the helmet, was interrupted. Then the water completely blocked Parmitano nose, mouth and ears.
However, in today's incident we are talking about a small amount of water. Nevertheless, NASA engineers will seriously study all the circumstances of this incident in order to avoid such situations in the future. This spacewalk was the second of three space station upgrades for receiving “space tourists”.
The astronauts started at 6:50 am EST and worked ahead of schedule. A safe return to the station was recorded at 1:35 pm.
