Cape Canaveral, Fla. – Four or five flakes of toxic ammonia dripped from a cooling-line cap Wednesday but apparently didn’t touch two U.S. astronauts conducting the first of three spacewalks planned outside the international space station over the next nine days.
The leak occurred late in the almost eight-hour spacewalk, as astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams disconnected and prepared to stow away two fluid lines that had been connected to an ammonia reservoir outside the space station.
Tests in the airlock later showed no contamination, and the spacewalk officially ended at 4:09 p.m. MST, seven hours and 55 minutes after it started.
During Wednesday’s spacewalk 220 miles above Earth, the astronauts successfully switched coolant lines from a temporary cooling system to a permanent one and secured a thermal cover around an obsolete radiator that Mission Control retracted by remote control.
Lopez-Alegria made electrical connections for a new system that will allow power from the station to be shared with a docked shuttle.
The astronauts ran out of time and only got one of two fluid lines stowed, and they didn’t get to “get-ahead” such tasks as taking photos of a solar array that will be retracted during the next shuttle mission, in March.
The astronauts will perform identical tasks in their second spacewalk, set for Sunday. The astronauts will take a third U.S. spacewalk together Thursday.
