Leak detected outside International Space Station

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The sun is about to come up over the South Pacific Ocean in this colorful scene photographed by one of the Expedition 35 crew members aboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station between. (NASA)

8:20 p.m. CDT, May 9, 2013

Crew members at the orbital outpost spotted white flakes of ammonia floating away from the space station at about 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Thursday, NASA said, and fixing the leak might require that a portion of the station's cooling system be shut down for about 48 hours.

"The station continues to operate normally otherwise and the crew is in no danger," it said.

In an audio exchange posted on the agency's website, Commander Chris Hadfield, who is Canadian, said he could see "a very steady stream of flakes or bits" coming from the area of one of several cooling loops.

Officials said the leak appeared to be getting worse.

The ammonia flakes were seen floating away from an area of the space station's P6 truss structure, the agency said. It was not clear whether it was related to a previous leak in late 2012.

Ammonia is used to cool the equipment that provides power to the station's systems, NASA said. Each array of solar battery cells has its own cooling loop.

The space station, which is staffed by rotating crews of six astronauts and cosmonauts, is a $100 billion research outpost owned by the United States and Russia in partnership with Europe, Japan and Canada.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Mohammad Zargham)

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Leak detected outside International Space Station

Ammonia leak detected outside International Space Station

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(Reuters) - An ammonia leak was detected in the cooling system outside of the International Space Station on Thursday, but no crew members are in danger and the station is operating normally, the U.S. space agency NASA said on its website.

Crew members at the orbital outpost spotted white flakes of ammonia floating away from the space station at about 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Thursday, NASA said, and fixing the leak might require that a portion of the station's cooling system be shut down for about 48 hours.

"The station continues to operate normally otherwise and the crew is in no danger," it said.

In an audio exchange posted on the agency's website, Commander Chris Hadfield, who is Canadian, said he could see "a very steady stream of flakes or bits" coming from the area of one of several cooling loops.

Officials said the leak appeared to be getting worse.

The ammonia flakes were seen floating away from an area of the space station's P6 truss structure, the agency said. It was not clear whether it was related to a previous leak in late 2012.

Ammonia is used to cool the equipment that provides power to the station's systems, NASA said. Each array of solar battery cells has its own cooling loop.

The space station, which is staffed by rotating crews of six astronauts and cosmonauts, is a $100 billion research outpost owned by the United States and Russia in partnership with Europe, Japan and Canada.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Mohammad Zargham)

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Ammonia leak detected outside International Space Station

Space station leaking ammonia

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By CNN Staff

updated 8:25 PM EDT, Thu May 9, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The International Space Station is once again leaking ammonia from a cooling system, NASA said Thursday in a news release.

The crew is not in danger, NASA said.

The space station crew reported seeing small white flakes floating away from the station, the space agency said, So NASA helped locate the leak with external cameras while the crew used hand-held cameras pointed out windows.

The leak was in a cooling loop in a solar array that has leaked before. NASA said crew members tried to fix the leak in November. It is unclear whether this is the same leak or a new one.

The cooling system could shut down within 24 hours, NASA said. It is devising a plan to reroute other sources of power.

Three crew members -- commander Chris Hadfield of Canada, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko -- are scheduled to leave the station on Monday at 7:08 p.m. ET.

Hadfield asked NASA if the leak will affect the undocking. Capsule Communicator Doug Wheelock said officials at the Mission Control Center in Houston don't see anything that they can't overcome technically, but they would have more information in the morning.

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Space station leaking ammonia

Space Station Suffers Troubling Coolant Leak

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Astronauts on the International Space Station have discovered a leak of ammonia coolant on their orbiting habitat, and NASA is looking into the problem, though it poses no immediate danger to the crew, officials said today (May 9).

The space station uses chilled liquid ammonia to cool down the power systems on its eight giant solar array panels. A minor leak of this ammonia was first noticed in 2007, and NASA has been studying the issue ever since.

In November 2012 two astronauts took a spacewalk to fix the problem, rewiring some coolant lines and installing a spare radiator due to fears the original radiator was damaged by a micrometeorite impact.

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At the time, those measures appeared to fix the problem, but today astronauts on the football field-size space station noticed a steady stream of frozen ammonia flakes leaking from the area of the suspect coolant loop in the Photovoltaic Thermal Control System (PVTCS).

"It is in the same area, but we don't know whether it's the same leak," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries of the Johnson Space Center in Houston told SPACE.com. Humphries said the agency was taking the leak seriously because it affects an important system if they lose the ability to cool that particular solar array, it won't be able to generate power for the station. In fact, the leak has worsened to the point that Mission Control expects that particular loop to shut down within the next 24 hours.

However, "the crew is in no danger," Humphries stressed. It's too soon to speculate on a possible spacewalk or other measure to deal with the issue, he added.

Mission Control has been discussing the problem with the astronauts on the station throughout the afternoon.

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"What you guys have provided in the way of imagery and video has been just like gold to us on the ground," astronaut Doug Wheelock from Mission Control radioed to space station commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut. "We are fairly confident that it's coming from the vicinity of the TCS." However, flight controllers noted they were still unable to pinpoint the leak's exact location.

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Space Station Suffers Troubling Coolant Leak

Space station leaking coolant

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NASA

This image from a NASA space shuttle mission shows the International Space Station in orbit. The space station is the size of a football field and home to six astronauts. (Image was taken on Feb. 10, 2010.)

By Clara Moskowitz Space.com

Astronauts on the International Space Station have discovered a leak of ammonia coolant on their orbiting habitat, and NASA is looking into the problem, though it poses no immediate danger to the crew, officials said Thursday.

The space station uses chilled liquid ammonia to cool down the power systems on its eight giant solar array panels. A minor leak of this ammonia was first noticed in 2007, and NASA has been studying the issue ever since. In November 2012 two astronauts took a spacewalk to fix the problem, rewiring some coolant lines and installing a spare radiator due to fears the original radiator was damaged by a micrometeorite impact.

At the time, those measures appeared to fix the problem, but today astronauts on the football field-size space station noticed a steady stream of frozen ammonia flakes leaking from the area of the suspect coolant loop in the Photovoltaic Thermal Control System (PVTCS). [Gallery: Building the International Space Station]

"It is in the same area, but we don't know whether it's the same leak," NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries of the Johnson Space Center in Houston told Space.com. Humphries said the agency was taking the leak seriously because it affects an important system if they loose the ability to cool that particular solar array, it won't be able to generate power for the station. In fact, the leak has worsened to the point that Mission Control expects that particular loop to shut down within the next 24 hours.

However, "the crew is in no danger," Humphries stressed. It's too soon to speculate on a possible spacewalk or other measure to deal with the issue, he added.

Mission Control has been discussing the problem with the astronauts on the station throughout the afternoon.

"What you guys have provided in the way of imagery and video has been just like gold to us on the ground," astronaut Doug Wheelock from Mission Control radioed to space station commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut. "We are fairly confident that it's coming from the vicinity of the TCS." However, flight controllers noted they were still unable to pinpoint the leak's exact location.

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Space station leaking coolant

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