A planned spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station has been canceled after mission controllers noticed “significant leaks” from a docked Soyuz spacecraft.
A “visible stream of flocs” was first observed around 19:45 EST (12:45 GMT Thursday) and caused Russian flight controllers to abort the mission, a live stream from Nasa showed .
“Tonight’s spacewalk has been canceled due to an observed leak of what is believed to be a coolant from Soyuz MS-22,” NASA commentator Rob Navias can be heard saying in a broadcast from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“We noticed visible flake vapor coming from the stern of the Soyuz near the instrumentation and propulsion module that was indicative of a leak,” Navias added.
The images showed a stream of snowflake-like particles spraying from the rear section of the capsule.
Tonight’s spacewalk with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin is on hold as mission controllers assess the flakes seen leaking from the Soyuz MS-22 crew craft. pic.twitter.com/jC5X1oaEDh
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) December 15, 2022
The mishap occurred just before two of the Roscosmos cosmonauts, crew commander Sergey Prokopyev and flight engineer Dimitri Petelin, were to prepare for a planned spacewalk to move a radiator from one module to another in the Russian segment of the ISS.
An official at Russia’s mission control operations near Moscow was heard telling the pair in a radio transmission that their spacewalk was being canceled while engineers worked to determine the nature of the problem.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin are seen on a spacewalk on November 17, 2022. Photo: ROSCOSMOS/Reuters
Specialists in Moscow were assessing the nature of the fluid and what impact it might have on the integrity of the Soyuz spacecraft, according to a NASA statement.
The space agency said the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) was not thought to be in danger.
Wednesday’s planned spacewalk was postponed once before, in late November, because of faulty coolant pumps in the cosmonauts’ spacesuits, Navias said.
Reuters contributed to this report