Space Walk Postponed After Leaks Cause "Literally Water Everywhere" In Airlock

The pair had already switched to the internal power of the suits – so technically the spacewalk had begun – and had opened the hatch to the Quest airlock. Then they became aware of the water issue.

“The crew members were not in any danger as result of the leak. Dyson and Barratt set their suits to battery power at 8:46 a.m. EDT and opened the International Space Station’s Quest airlock hatch to the vacuum of space before reporting the water issue,” a NASA blog post about the event reads. “The spacewalk lasted a total of 31 minutes, when the crew suits repressurized the crew lock section of the airlock at 9:17 a.m.”

Spacewalking comes with risks – NASA estimates that around one-fifth of extravehicular activity ends up having either serious incidents or close calls. If we need to remember water-leak ones, we could think of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowning in space. In that case, water was accumulating in the inside of his suit and helmet, slowly making its way across his face to his nose and mouth.

Nothing as dangerous and dramatic happened in this case. Dyson and Barratt were going to remove a faulty electronics box from a communication antenna in the starboard truss of the International Space Station. They were also going to collect samples to see if microorganisms can survive in the vacuum of space around the station.

The microbe collecting is an ongoing series of investigations inside and outside the space station to understand how microbes are adapting to the space environment. Some recent studies have shown that some have mutated in such a way that they are no longer similar to their Earthly counterparts. 

The spacewalk has not been rescheduled and it might push the next spacewalk, planned for July 2, forward as well.