Issue with spacesuits delays U.S. spacewalks on the ISS

Two astronaut maintenance spacewalks on the International Space Station set for this month have been postponed by NASA because of a potential issue with a fuse in one of the U.S.  spacesuit batteries. The space station’s current commander Steve Swanson and flight engineer Reid Wiseman had been preparing for the spacewalks originally scheduled for August 21^st and 29^th , but will now have to make the excursion no earlier than this fall.

The ISS in orbit. Image via NASA.

According to NASA, a new set of Long-Life Batteries will be delivered to the astronaut outpost inside of a robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule, which is scheduled to launch on September 12^th . The flight will be the fourth of 12 unmanned cargo missions to the space station as part of a $1.6 billion deal SpaceX has with NASA.

The delay in spacewalks won’t affect any daily operations of the station, but it most likely means Swanson won’t be participating in other ventures to space during his stay aboard the station, since he’s scheduled to return to Earth on September 10^th on a Soyuz capsule with Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, who will go ahead with their spacewalk planned for this month.

Preparations for the late August excursions were shelved following an August 5^th decision by ISS mission managers to replace the batteries currently on the station because of concerns with the performance internal fuses during ground testing. The Dragon mission offers the next delivery opportunity. 

Story via space.com