Another Spacewalk Postponed, This Time To Avoid Rocket Debris

KEY POINTS

The debris avoidance maneuver has led to the postponement of the spacewalk
The spacewalk will now be conducted on Thursday
Another spacewalk was canceled recently over a leak on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft

A piece of rocket debris has forced NASA to temporarily suspend a spacewalk and the International Space Station (ISS) to maneuver out of its path.

NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Josh Cassada were scheduled to conduct the spacewalk Wednesday to augment the orbiting laboratory's power generation system. However, it ended up in another postponement, this time because of the close approach of "a fragment of Russian Fregat-SB upper stage debris," NASA said in an update.

The Pre-determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver (PDAM) was conducted Wednesday at 8.42 a.m. EST. To get just a bit further away from the predicted path of the debris, the Roscosmos Progress 81 thrusters were fired for 10 minutes and 21 seconds.

"Without the maneuver, it was estimated that the debris could have passed less than a quarter of a mile from the station," the agency said, clarifying that the crew "was never in any immediate danger."

At 8:42am ET, the space station conducted a Pre-Determined Debris Avoidance Maneuver to provide an extra measure of distance away from the predicted track of a fragment of debris, which resulted in a postponement of the spacewalk by @NASA_Astronauts. https://t.co/sRDeALLf69
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) December 21, 2022

However, the postponement wasn't for too long as it was only pushed back for 24 hours. Rubio and Cassada are now scheduled to conduct the spacewalk — the 12th one this year — on Thursday at 8.30 a.m. EST.

During the spacewalk, the pair will install an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) in an endeavor that's expected to last for about seven hours. People can watch the spacewalk live on NASA TV.

NASA's space station manager Joel Montalbano and Russian space agency Roscosmos' human spaceflight executive director Sergei Krikalev speak to media during the event.

They will discuss the recent leak on the Soyuz MS-22 spaceflight that led to the cancellation of another spacewalk supposed to be conducted by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.

.@NASA will host a media teleconference at 11am ET on Thursday, Dec. 22, to discuss the ongoing investigation of an external leak that occurred Dec. 14 from the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Live audio will stream at https://t.co/cBNqC61h27. https://t.co/4PM5sqHGIW
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) December 21, 2022

Earlier this week, Russian authorities confirmed the presence of an 0.8-millimeter hole on the spacecraft that could have been the cause of the leak. Though Roscosmos head Yury Borisov called the situation "not very pleasant," he said there was "no hurry" to make a decision on the matter.

On Wednesday, Borisov again stressed that the crew aboard the ISS is safe, and that the temperatures on Soyuz MS-22 have already stabilized, reported Russian news agency TASS.

"Today, we have no fears, primarily about the life of the crew on the ISS," Borisov reportedly said in a live broadcast on the Rossiya-24 TV Channel.

He also praised the cosmonauts aboard the ISS, saying the "their composure can only be admired."