Spacewalkers head out to fix space station's coolant leak – if they can

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LIVE VIDEO Expedition 35 crew members Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn conduct a spacewalk on the International Space Station to inspect and possibly stop a leak of ammonia coolant.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Two NASA astronauts began a spacewalk aimed at troubleshooting an ammonia leak in the coolant system for one of the International Space Station's massive solar arrays on Saturday, just two days after the problem was detected.

The operation ranks as one of the fastest turnarounds ever for a space station repair a feat that impressed the orbital outpost's Canadian commander, Chris Hadfield. "The whole team is ticking like clockwork. ... I am so proud to be commander of this crew," he wrote in a Twitter update. "Such great, capable, fun people."

Hadfield is serving as the inside man for the spacewalk, and will help make sure that NASA spacewalkers Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy stay on track during an outing that's expected to last six and a half hours.

The spacewalk got underway at 8:44 a.m. ET, about a half-hour later than originally planned, but the two veteran spacefliers made quick progress so quick that Mission Control had to remind them to stop and do safety checks on their spacesuits. "You guys got to the worksite a little faster than we were keeping up with," said Mike Fincke, an astronaut who was guiding the duo from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Marshburn and Cassidy are due to check a 260-pound (118-kilogram) pump box that's thought to be the source of the leak, and possibly replace it with a spare. The procedure is considered one of the "Big 12" spacewalk tasks for long-term station maintenance, and the astronauts were trained to do the swap before they launched. Nevertheless, the two-day turnaround is "precedent-setting" for space station operations, said Norm Knight, NASA's chief flight director.

Station crew members alerted Mission Control to the leak on Thursday when they saw "snowflakes" of frozen ammonia floating away from an area around the pump box. That area had been losing coolant at the rate of about 5 pounds (2.27 kilograms) per year, said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. On Thursday, the rate jumped to 5 pounds a day.

NASA is trying to fix an ammonia leak on the International Space Station. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Suffredini said the leak isn't putting the crew in any danger, and the station could manage without that particular coolant systems if it had to. The system services only one of the station's eight 112-foot-long (34-meter-long) solar arrays. For the time being, power from that array is being routed through the station's other electrical channels, Suffredini said.

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Spacewalkers head out to fix space station's coolant leak – if they can

Astronauts Taking Spacewalk to Fix Space Station Ammonia Leak Today: Watch Live

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Two NASA astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station on an emergency spacewalk today (May 11) in an attempt to o fix a leak of ammonia coolant.

NASA's Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will perform the unprecedented spacewalk. The spacewalk will start at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT) with NASA TV coverage beginning at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT). You canwatch the spacewalk here on SPACE.comvia NASA TV.

The six residents of the orbiting laboratory noticedfrozen flakes of ammonialeaking from a station coolant loop on the leftmost side of the space station on Thursday (May 9). Liquid ammonia is a vital coolant for chilling the electronics that produce the outpost's power. [Emergency Spacewalk to Fix Space Station Leak in Photos]

"The plan for this EVA [spacewalk] really is to see if we can identify the leak," Mike Suffredini, NASA's International Space Station program manager said during a briefing yesterday. "The plan is to change out the pump on this particular EVA. The most likely sources of the leak is this particular pump."

The space station crew is in no danger, NASA officials said, but the pump responsible for the movement of ammonia through that part of the system was shut off in order to conserve coolant.

Spacewalk repair on tap

For today's spacewalk, Cassidy and Marshburn plan to inspect, and potentially replace, an ammonia coolant pump controller box on the space station's Port 6 truss, a segment of the station's scaffolding-like backbone that is on the far left side. NASA space station engineers suspect the box may be the source of the leak since the ammonia was spotted coming from an area near it on Thursday.

This will not be the first time space station crewmembers have spacewalked to repair an ammonia leak on the space station's cooling sytem.

NASA's Sunita Williams and Japanese spaceflyer Akihiko Hoshide took a spacewalk to correct a leak in a coolant loop on theInternational Space Station's Port 6 truss (its scaffolding-like backbone). The 2012 coolant leak was in the same loop as the current leak, but engineers don't yet know if the two leaks are related.

The station's Port 6 truss is the oldest piece of the space station's backbone and carries two of the outpost's eight wing-like solar arrays. It was launched in November 2000 and originally installed on the station's roof, extending up. In 2007, visiting shuttle astronauts relocated the P6 truss to its final location on the station's far left side.

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Astronauts Taking Spacewalk to Fix Space Station Ammonia Leak Today: Watch Live

NASA’s Heliophysics Fleet Captures Prominence Eruption and CME Many Eyes On the Sun WWW.GOODNEWS.WS – Video

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NASA #39;s Heliophysics Fleet Captures Prominence Eruption and CME Many Eyes On the Sun http://WWW.GOODNEWS.WS
http://goodnews.ws/ Several missions within NASA #39;s Heliophysics observatory captured images of a gigantic eruption on the sun on May 1, 2013. Working togethe...

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NASA's Heliophysics Fleet Captures Prominence Eruption and CME Many Eyes On the Sun http://WWW.GOODNEWS.WS - Video

NASA’s Heliophysics Fleet Captures May 1, 2013 Prominence Eruption and CME /1080p HD – Video

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NASA #39;s Heliophysics Fleet Captures May 1, 2013 Prominence Eruption and CME /1080p HD
On May 1, 2013, NASA #39;s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) watched as an active region just around the left edge of the sun erupted with a huge cloud of solar m...

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NASA's Heliophysics Fleet Captures May 1, 2013 Prominence Eruption and CME /1080p HD - Video

Solar Eruption Caught by NASA’s Fleet of Satellites | Space Science Full HD – Video

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Solar Eruption Caught by NASA #39;s Fleet of Satellites | Space Science Full HD
Visit my website at http://www.junglejoel.com - when a huge solar eruption occurred on May 1, 2013, NASA #39;s fleet of solar satellites provided excellent views...

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NASA: ISS Leaking Ammonia But Crew is Safe

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The International Space Station is leaking ammonia from its P6 truss structure but the crew is "in no danger," NASA reported this week.

The Expedition 35 crew reported seeing "white flakes floating away from an area of the International Space Station's P6 truss structure" on Thursday at around 11:30 a.m. Eastern, according to the space agency.

As of Thursday, NASA said that "the rate of the ammonia leaking from this section of the cooling system has increased" but maintained that the "station continues to operate normally otherwise and the crew is in no danger."

The leaking ammonia was coming from the same solar array cooling loop that sprung a leak last year. The ISS crew "attempted to troubleshoot" that leak on Nov. 1, 2012, according to NASA, which didn't specify whether they had been successful.

"It is not yet known whether this increased ammonia flow is from the same leak, which at the time, was not visible," the space agency said.

Mission Control and the ISS crew have apparently narrowed down the location of the leak but have not isolated its exact location. NASA said "[p]lans are being developed to reroute other power channels to maintain full operation of those and other systems normally controlled by the solar array that is cooled by this loop."

NASA reported Thursday that its thermal control systems team was projecting a shutdown of the affected cooling loop in "about 48 hours" due to the leak.

"The team is looking at whether any additional imagery is needed to isolate the leak's location," the space agency said.

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NASA: ISS Leaking Ammonia But Crew is Safe

NASA: Coolant leak on ISS no threat to crew

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NASA flight controllers were monitoring an ammonia coolant leak on one of the International Space Station's solar panel arrays, NASA officials said late Thursday. The space agency said the crew of the ISS was not in any danger due to the leak on the station's left-side power truss.

The leak was reported by the station crew around 11:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday. Video, sources said, showed a stream of white flakes dissipating into the vacuum of space.

The leak is in the system used to cool electronics associated with solar array power channel 2B, one of eight fed by the station's huge solar panels. Ammonia flowing through a large radiator is used to carry away heat generated by the array's batteries and electrical systems.

The coolant system requires at least 40 pounds of ammonia to operate normally. Based on the observed leak rate, NASA said in a web update, the channel 2B coolant loop could drop below that level and shut down within 48 hours if nothing is done to resolve it.

In that case, the station's six-man crew would be forced to reconfigure the station's cooling systems. While the crew would lose redundancy in the cooling system, flight controllers do not believe any major systems would have to be shut down to reduce cooling requirements.

The space station can operate without the full complement of cooling channels, but the total loss of a coolant loop would require a significant reconfiguration to prevent electrical systems on the affected loop from overheating.

The station is equipped with spare parts for the coolant system and the U.S. astronauts are trained for possible spacewalk repair jobs. But as of this writing, it is not known whether a spacewalk might be required at some point or whether some other repair option might be implemented.

A spacewalk would require two U.S. astronauts. At present, two U.S. astronauts, a Canadian flier and three Russians are aboard the outpost. But NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Canadian space station commander Chris Hadfield and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko are scheduled to return to Earth early Tuesday aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams during a speacewalk outside the International Space Station, Nov. 1, 2012, to perform work and to support ground-based troubleshooting of an ammonia leak.

"We don't see anything technically that we can't overcome," astronaut Doug Wheelock radioed the crew from Houston. "But we are still getting our arms fully around that issue."

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NASA: Coolant leak on ISS no threat to crew

NASA Curiosity rover team selects second drilling target on NASA

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May 10, 2013 The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days.

This second drilling target, called "Cumberland," lies about nine feet (2.75 meters) west of the rock where Curiosity's drill first touched Martian stone in February. Curiosity took the first rock sample ever collected on Mars from that rock, called "John Klein." The rover found evidence of an ancient environment favorable for microbial life. Both rocks are flat, with pale veins and a bumpy surface. They are embedded in a layer of rock on the floor of a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay."

This second drilling is intended to confirm results from the first drilling, which indicated the chemistry of the first powdered sample from John Klein was much less oxidizing than that of a soil sample the rover scooped up before it began drilling.

"We know there is some cross-contamination from the previous sample each time," said Dawn Sumner, a long-term planner for Curiosity's science team at the University of California at Davis. "For the Cumberland sample, we expect to have most of that cross-contamination come from a similar rock, rather than from very different soil."

Although Cumberland and John Klein are very similar, Cumberland appears to have more of the erosion-resistant granules that cause the surface bumps. The bumps are concretions, or clumps of minerals, which formed when water soaked the rock long ago. Analysis of a sample containing more material from these concretions could provide information about the variability within the rock layer that includes both John Klein and Cumberland.

Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., recently finished upgrading Curiosity's operating software following a four-week break. The rover continued monitoring the Martian atmosphere during the break, but the team did not send any new commands because Mars and the sun were positioned in such a way the sun could have blocked or corrupted commands sent from Earth.

Curiosity is about nine months into a two-year prime mission since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. After the second rock drilling in Yellowknife Bay and a few other investigations nearby, the rover will drive toward the base of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometers) layered mountain inside the crater.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project, of which Curiosity is the centerpiece, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the mission, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . To follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter visit: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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NASA Curiosity rover team selects second drilling target on NASA

NASA Safety review for SNC's Dream Chaser

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WASHINGTON, May 10 (UPI) -- A comprehensive safety review of a commercial, human space flight services system for NASA has been completed.

The system is called the Dream Chaser Space System and is being developed by Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems of Louisville, Colo., under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

The Integrated Systems Safety Analysis Review provides NASA with hazard reports and safety and reliability plans for the major components of the company's integrated crew transportation system, including the Dream Chaser spacecraft, launch rocket and flight and ground systems.

"Safety review milestones are critical to ensuring safety and reliability techniques and methods are incorporated into space systems design," said Ed Mango, NASA's CCP manager. "NASA's participation in these reviews provides our partners with critical design experiences from past human spaceflight activities."

Added Mark Sirangelo, head of SNC's Space Systems: "Dream Chaser is making substantial progress toward flight with the help of our NASA team.

"The ability to openly exchange information through the work on these CCiCap milestones is invaluable for many reasons, such as communicating Dream Chaser development plans and receiving timely feedback from NASA, all of which help to improve our design and maximize safety and reliability."

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NASA Safety review for SNC's Dream Chaser

Prestigious Awards Won By NASA Curiosity Rover

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May 10, 2013

Image Caption: This self-portrait of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity combines 66 exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of the team that landed NASAs Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with coveted awards.

The National Aeronautic Association will present its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory Team of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at an event in Arlington, Va., Thursday night. At an event in Washington on Wednesday, the team received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Award. Several individuals from NASA were also honored by the AIAA.

Its wonderful to see NASAs people and their accomplishments recognized by the aerospace community, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. In particular, the Curiosity landing was the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the history of robotic planetary exploration. These prestigious awards are a testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire worldwide team.

AIAA also conferred its highest recognition, the title of honorary fellow, on William Gerstenmaier, NASAs associate administrator for human exploration and operations and presented NASAs associate administrator for science, astronaut John Grunsfeld, with its AIAA National Capitol Section Barry Goldwater Educator Award. AIAA recognized Ray G. Clinton of NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., and Laurence D. Leavitt of NASAs Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., as fellows.

The National Aeronautic Association established the Collier Trophy in 1911 and presents it yearly to recognize the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America. The AIAA awards recognize the most influential and inspiring individuals in aerospace, whose outstanding contributions merit the highest accolades. Past honorees have included Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, the team that designed the space shuttle and the astronauts who carried out the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission in 1993.

The NAAs Collier citation notes the Mars Science Laboratory teams extraordinary achievements of successfully landing Curiosity on Mars, advancing the nations technological and engineering capabilities, and significantly improving humanitys understanding of ancient Martian habitable environments.

More than 7,000 people in at least 33 U.S. states and 11 other countries have worked on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity, the laboratorys centerpiece, carries 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history inside Gale Crater on Mars. In March, rover scientists announced an analysis of a rock sample collected there shows Mars could have supported living microbes in an ancient freshwater environment. Curiositys mission is expected to last at least two years.

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Prestigious Awards Won By NASA Curiosity Rover

NASA Curiosity Rover Wins Prestigious Awards

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Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of the team that landed NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with coveted awards.

The National Aeronautic Association will present its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory Team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at an event in Arlington, Va., Thursday night. At an event in Washington on Wednesday, the team received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Award. Several individuals from NASA were also honored by the AIAA.

"It's wonderful to see NASA's people and their accomplishments recognized by the aerospace community," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "In particular, the Curiosity landing was the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the history of robotic planetary exploration. These prestigious awards are a testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire worldwide team."

AIAA also conferred its highest recognition, the title of honorary fellow, on William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations and presented NASA's associate administrator for science, astronaut John Grunsfeld, with its AIAA National Capitol Section Barry Goldwater Educator Award. AIAA recognized Ray G. Clinton of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., and Laurence D. Leavitt of NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., as fellows.

The National Aeronautic Association established the Collier Trophy in 1911 and presents it yearly to recognize the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America. The AIAA awards recognize the most influential and inspiring individuals in aerospace, whose outstanding contributions merit the highest accolades. Past honorees have included Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, the team that designed the space shuttle and the astronauts who carried out the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission in 1993.

The NAA's Collier citation notes the Mars Science Laboratory team's "extraordinary achievements of successfully landing Curiosity on Mars, advancing the nation's technological and engineering capabilities, and significantly improving humanity's understanding of ancient Martian habitable environments."

More than 7,000 people in at least 33 U.S. states and 11 other countries have worked on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity, the laboratory's centerpiece, carries 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history inside Gale Crater on Mars. In March, rover scientists announced an analysis of a rock sample collected there shows Mars could have supported living microbes in an ancient freshwater environment. Curiosity's mission is expected to last at least two years.

"The prestigious Collier Trophy is a wonderful recognition for Curiosity, a phenomenal engineering and science achievement that has captured the hearts and minds of children and adults across America and around the globe," said Charles Elachi, director of JPL. "It's an honor to do missions like this one on behalf of NASA and the nation."

Two other teams from JPL that manage NASA spacecraft, the Dawn mission to the asteroid belt and the Voyager mission to interstellar space, were finalists for the 2012 Collier Trophy. "JPL is a hub of technological ingenuity, and we're honored that the accomplishments of multiple JPL teams have been acknowledged," Elachi said.

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NASA Curiosity Rover Wins Prestigious Awards

NASA Wins Prestigious Aerospace Industry Awards

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Two prominent aerospace industry organizations are recognizing the contributions of NASA, especially the achievements of the team that landed NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars in August, with coveted awards. The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) presented its Robert J. Collier Trophy to the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, at an event in Arlington,VA, Thursday night. At an event in Washington on Wednesday, the team received the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Foundation Award.

AIAA also conferred its highest recognition, the title of honorary fellow, on William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations and presented NASA's Associate Administrator for Science, astronaut John Grunsfeld, with its AIAA National Capitol Section Barry Goldwater Educator Award. AIAA recognized two other NASA employees as fellows: Ray G. Clinton of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Laurence D. Leavitt of NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

"It's wonderful to see NASA's people and their accomplishments recognized by the aerospace community," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "In particular, the Curiosity landing was the hardest NASA mission ever attempted in the history of robotic planetary exploration. These prestigious awards are a testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire worldwide team."

The NAA established the Collier Trophy in 1911 and presents it yearly to recognize the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America. The AIAA awards recognize the most influential and inspiring individuals in aerospace, whose outstanding contributions merit the highest accolades. Past honorees have included Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, the team that designed the space shuttle and the astronauts who carried out the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission in 1993.

The NAA's Collier citation notes the MSL team's "extraordinary achievements of successfully landing Curiosity on Mars, advancing the nation's technological and engineering capabilities, and significantly improving humanity's understanding of ancient Martian habitable environments."

More than 7,000 people in at least 33 U.S. states and 11 other countries have worked on the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity, the laboratory's centerpiece, carries 10 science instruments to investigate the environmental history inside Gale Crater on Mars. In March, rover scientists announced an analysis of a rock sample collected there shows Mars could have supported living microbes in an ancient freshwater environment. Curiosity's mission is expected to last at least two years.

"The prestigious Collier Trophy is a wonderful recognition for Curiosity, a phenomenal engineering and science achievement that has captured the hearts and minds of children and adults across America and around the globe," said Charles Elachi, director of JPL. "It's an honor to do missions like this one on behalf of NASA and the nation."

Two other teams from JPL that manage NASA spacecraft, the Dawn mission to the asteroid belt and the Voyager mission to interstellar space, were finalists for the 2012 Collier Trophy.

(Pictured in the back row are the following members of the team (from left to right): Tom Rivellini, Gavin Mendeck, Steve Lee, Miguel San Martin, Tomas Martin-Mur, Adam Steltzner, Ben Thoma, Howard Eisen and Ravi Prakash. In the front row (from left to right) are: Carl Guernsey, Keith Comeaux, Jody Davis, Ann Devereaux, Allen Chen and Fuk Li. Image credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

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NASA Wins Prestigious Aerospace Industry Awards

NASA: Spacewalk planned to fix space station leak

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WASHINGTON (AP) Two astronauts will make a hastily planned spacewalk Saturday to try to fix an ammonia leak in the power system of the International Space Station.

The leak in a cooling system was discovered Thursday when snowflakes of ammonia were seen flying away from the station. Engineers on Earth were up overnight plotting an impromptu spacewalk.

Spacewalks are rarely done on such short notice, but the space agency wanted to check out the leak before all the ammonia escaped and also to take advantage of a spacewalking crew member who is about to return home.

Officials emphasized that the six-member crew is not in danger and the outpost has plenty of power, even though the leak forced NASA to shut off the power channel from one of eight solar panels that supply electricity to the station.

It can operate fine with only seven electrical channels, space station program manager Michael Suffredini said Friday. Power from the affected panel was re-routed to the other seven systems.

Suffredini said the chief suspect for the leak is space junk hitting a cooling tube, but he said the area had a slow small leak for many years that suddenly accelerated on Thursday.

Youre talking a very, very, very small hole, Suffredini said at a NASA news conference.

NASA hopes the leak is in a small pump box. During the six-hour spacewalk on Saturday morning, U.S. astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will replace the 260-pound box with a nearby spare.

While NASA has had to do impromptu spacewalks before, they havent been done on the space station since it was completely built and operating as a finished lab, said chief flight director Norm Knight, who called the move precedent-setting.

Station Commander Chris Hadfield of Canada told NASA flight controllers Friday that the crew is completely ready for the spacewalk.

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NASA: Spacewalk planned to fix space station leak

NASA mulls spacewalk to fix space station leak

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WASHINGTON (AP) Two astronauts are preparing for a possible impromptu spacewalk Saturday to work on a coolant leak in the power system at the International Space Station.

NASA says the six-member crew at the station is not in danger. The ammonia leak forced the shutdown of one of eight solar panels that power the station, but the outpost can operate fine with only seven, spokesman Kelly Humphries said.

NASA will decide Friday evening whether the spacewalk is needed Saturday. One of the spacewalk veterans slated for the job is due to return to Earth on Monday, one of the reasons NASA wants to do it this weekend, he said.

Station Commander Chris Hadfield of Canada told NASA flight controllers Friday that the six-member crew is completely ready for the spacewalk.

"I think it's really smart the way we're all proceeding here," Hadfield radioed down to Earth. "It's the right thing to do."

Hadfield tweeted that the crew was working "like clockwork" and said the two astronauts were already getting their spacesuits ready, adding "Cool!"

The leak is in one of the radiator lines that chill the power systems. NASA spokesman Rob Navias said the line was expected to run out of ammonia coolant Friday. Power has been rerouted and is operating normally, he said.

NASA suspects the leak might be on the far left truss of the station from a certain box, but isn't certain. There's a spare box right near it and spacewalking astronauts can swap it out if that's the source, Navias said.

"What's causing the leak is unknown because there's a lot of plumbing underneath the box itself," he said. "We've had lots of experience in installing and replacing coolant loop hardware."

If needed, U.S. astronauts Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn would make about a six-hour spacewalk. They have trained for this type of repair. It is what NASA calls one of the "Big 12" types of emergency repair work that all spacewalking astronauts prepare for in advance, Navias said.

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NASA mulls spacewalk to fix space station leak