caffienekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caffienekitty) wrote2013-05-11 09:01 am
caffienekitty) wrote2013-05-11 09:01 am
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News of the Nifty: Space Station Repair Crew
I'm currently watching (while doing misc cleaning etc) what is essentially two guys installing a refrigeration unit. On the space station.
A pump sprung an ammonia leak on Thursday so this is a non-scheduled spacewalk, which they are airing live on NASA TV. So far, there has been a sunrise, a funny comment or two ("You're being photobombed by your tether.") and a couple guys removing and replacing a cooling unit in scrupulous and painstaking detail, in zero-g and the vacuum of space clinging to the outside of a space station going around the Earth so fast it experiences 16 sunrises a day, which I believe is 7.7 km/s, or about five times the speed of a bullet.
I found myself idly watching a guy using a funky space power-drill and thinking, "It's all supposed to go well, nothing big happening is a good thing, it means nothing's gone wrong." And that's when the camera feed from the guy went blue-screen, which was mildly alarming.
It's still ongoing, they've got the new one in, they're hooking the old one up to the spare dock to salvage the ammonia from it and try to diagnose if it's the cause of the leak.
The unscheduled sort-of-emergency spacewalk is currently streaming live at NASA TV for anyone else interested in watching.
A pump sprung an ammonia leak on Thursday so this is a non-scheduled spacewalk, which they are airing live on NASA TV. So far, there has been a sunrise, a funny comment or two ("You're being photobombed by your tether.") and a couple guys removing and replacing a cooling unit in scrupulous and painstaking detail, in zero-g and the vacuum of space clinging to the outside of a space station going around the Earth so fast it experiences 16 sunrises a day, which I believe is 7.7 km/s, or about five times the speed of a bullet.
I found myself idly watching a guy using a funky space power-drill and thinking, "It's all supposed to go well, nothing big happening is a good thing, it means nothing's gone wrong." And that's when the camera feed from the guy went blue-screen, which was mildly alarming.
It's still ongoing, they've got the new one in, they're hooking the old one up to the spare dock to salvage the ammonia from it and try to diagnose if it's the cause of the leak.
The unscheduled sort-of-emergency spacewalk is currently streaming live at NASA TV for anyone else interested in watching.
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On the way back in, one of the astronauts stopped at the airlock for a minute and gave a little tribute speech thanking the ground crew and honoring the memory of one of the trainers they all had when training for space walks who died suddenly last week. I'm sure that's going to get repeated or transcripted somewhere, it was beautiful and far more than I can describe.
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