NASA cancels spacewalk due to strange message

This is not the first time NASA has canceled a spacewalk or extravehicular activity on one of its missions. This already happened last year due to a fatal drop on the International Space Station (ISS), and now there is a new cancellation of what would have been NASA’s 90th flight to the ISS. Cause? “Discomfort in a spacesuit“, the American agency said in a statement. What this exactly means or implies is still unclear.

According to the statement, astronauts Tracy K. Dyson and Matthew Dominick, scheduled for the excursion, were fully equipped before the mission was cancelled, but an hour before they took off their suits and canceled the mission.

So far, NASA has not released any additional details, but Reuters reported that just minutes before the announcement, another NASA astronaut, Mike Barratt, said: ask air traffic controllers to provide a private line discuss a medical topic.

It’s unclear if this is related to the flight cancellation, and we also don’t know which astronauts had issues with discomfort. At least it didn’t seem like it was anything too serious. In its update, NASA said that all station crew members are healthy and the spacesuits work as expected.”

It is unknown whether there will be a spacewalk, but the space agency has confirmed it. the next one will take place on June 24. This is not the first time that spacewalks on the ISS have been suspended due to problems with spacesuits. In 2019, NASA’s first all-female spacewalk was somewhat embarrassingly delayed when one of the astronauts discovered that her spacesuit was the wrong “size.”

What’s more sad is The agency had to suspend almost all spacewalks in 2022 planned after water was discovered in the helmet of an astronaut who had just completed a flight.

Although these are not serious incidents, they renew the debate about when NASA He will finally update his astronauts’ spacesuits, which seems increasingly necessary.