The planned spacewalk for two NASA astronauts today (June 13) has been postponed.
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 71 crew members Tracy Dyson and Matt Dominick will not be performing an extravehicular activity (EVA) that was scheduled to begin Thursday (June 13) morning. The pair had already started donning their spacesuits when NASA announced the postponement of the EVA, according to a post on the space agency’s blog this morning.
The call came at about 6:25 a.m. CDT (1025 GMT), roughly an hour before Dyson and Dominick were supposed to exit the ISS from Quest’s airlock.
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NASA had already begun live streaming today’s EVA procedures when the announcement was made. “Spacewalkers Tracy Dyson and Matt Dominick were preparing for US EVA 90 – spacewalk 90 – today, but today’s spacewalk will not go ahead as planned,” a NASA commentator said on air shortly after it was taken the decision to postpone, adding, “we” are waiting for more information and we will share it as we learn it.”
Shortly after, a NASA update indicated that the call had been made due to a “spacesuit disturbance issue,” but did not say which astronaut had experienced the problem.
One of the crew members assisting Dyson and Dominick was NASA astronaut Suni Williams, seen on NASA’s live broadcast. Williams recently arrived at the space station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as part of the Crew Flight Test (CFT) of the capsule. Suni and her CFT crewmate, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, docked with the station the day after their rocket launched on June 5 and were scheduled to lift off about a week later. However, their return to Earth was postponed to June 18, citing preparations for today’s EVA as part of the reason. It is not clear whether the changes to this morning’s EVA will affect Wilmore and Williams’ departure from the space station.
The cancellation of the spacewalk comes after audio from an emergency ISS medical drill caused a media frenzy when it was accidentally broadcast live on NASA’s live broadcasts on Wednesday evening. There was no emergency on the ISS, NASA said
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