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Spacesuit sensor failure interrupts spacewalk plan
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: May 20, 2011


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Credit: NASA TV
 
Spacewalkers Andrew Feustel and Gregory Chamitoff were told to skip a final bit of work Friday because of a carbon dioxide sensor failure in Chamitoff's spacesuit. The sensor problem forced flight controllers to adopt more conservative guidelines that did not leave the astronauts enough time to finish hooking up new wireless antennas, a job that involved a fair amount of re-wiring.

The antenna work was the final major objective of the spacewalk, which had proceeded smoothly to that point. Feustel and Chamitoff successfully replaced a materials science space exposure experiment package, installed a light on a crew equipment cart, replaced a cover on a solar array rotary joint and connected jumpers and hoses for use during a spacewalk Sunday to recharge ammonia coolant on one of the space station's solar arrays.

The new antennas, attached to a pair of spacewalk handrails, were mounted on the station and the astronauts were getting ready to remove micrometeoroid shielding to gain access to a wiring panel when Chamitoff's CO2 sensor failed.

"I'm getting a CO2 'bad sensor' message," Chamitoff radioed at 7:41 a.m.

"Say again, Taz?" spacewalk coordinator Michael Fincke asked.

"CO2 sensor bad message."

"Copy, CO2 bad sensor message. We'll meet you in the checklist," Fincke replied. "It pretty much says you are to periodically monitor your physical condition because your CO2 sensor has failed. If you notice symptoms you'll let us know and your helmet purge valve will go to open and we'll terminate the EVA. But in the meantime, if you have no symptoms we're going to continue. How copy?

"Understood. And I'll be monitoring my own symptoms."

"OK, and I know with all your station experience you know your CO2 symptoms well and we won't worry about it," Fincke said. "But we might bother you every 15 or 20 minutes to see how you're doing."

At the time of the failure, controllers calculated Chamitoff's suit would be good for more than seven seven hours. But after the sensor failure, adopting more conservative calculations, they concluded he needed to be back in the airlock within about 90 minutes. That did not leave enough time to complete the antenna re-wiring.


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