Astronauts complete spacewalk to fix space station cooling system
MOSCOW. November 2. KAZINFORM A US-Japanese team has returned to the to the Quest airlock module of the International Space Station (ISS) late on Thursday after completing a spacewalk to fix the station's cooling system.
The space station commander, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and her Japanese colleague Akihiko Hoshide spent six hours and 38 minutes on the exterior of the ISS.
The objective of the spacewalk, which began at 16:19 Moscow time [12:19 GMT] and ended at 23:07 Moscow time [19:07 GMT], was to isolate and repair a persistent ammonia leak.
Ammonia is used to cool down power units associated with eight solar arrays installed on the ISS, Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.
Space station partners have known about the ammonia leak in one of the solar arrays since 2007, but it was not considered a major concern due to its very low leakage rate. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour recharged the coolant system with 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) of ammonia last year.
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