Unexplained leak from docked Soyuz spacecraft cancels Russian ISS spacewalk - Reuters

Dec 14 (Reuters) - A regular spacewalk by 2 Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) was called disconnected arsenic it was astir to statesman aft formation controllers noticed a watercourse of liquid spewing from a docked Soyuz spacecraft, a NASA webcast showed.

The spray of fluid, which was disposable successful NASA's unrecorded video provender arsenic a torrent of snowflake-like particles emanating from the rear conception of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule, was described by a NASA commentator arsenic a coolant leak.

NASA said nary of the 7 members of the existent International Space Station (ISS) unit - 3 Russian cosmonauts, 3 U.S. NASA astronauts and a Japanese astronaut - was ever successful immoderate danger.

The mishap occurred conscionable arsenic 2 of the cosmonauts, unit commandant Sergey Prokopyev and formation technologist Dimitri Petelin, were suited and preparing for a planned spacewalk to determination a radiator from 1 module to different connected the Russian conception of the ISS.

An authoritative for Russia's ngo power operations adjacent Moscow was heard telling Prokopyev and Petelin successful a vigor transmission that their spacewalk was being canceled portion engineers worked to find the quality and root of the leak.

The NASA commentator connected the livestream, Rob Navias, broadcasting from NASA's Johnson Space Center successful Houston, besides said the spacewalk was called disconnected due to the fact that of the leak, which helium said began astir 7:45 p.m. EST (0145 GMT Thursday).

Navias said the Soyuz trade arrived astatine the abstraction presumption successful September, bringing Prokopyev, Petelin and U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio to the ISS, and has remained attached to the Earth-facing broadside of the orbital laboratory.

The spacewalk planned for Wednesday was postponed erstwhile before, successful precocious November, due to the fact that of faulty cooling pumps successful the cosmonauts' spacesuits, Navias said.

The spacewalk was to beryllium the 12th this twelvemonth astatine the ISS and the 257th successful the past of the 22-year-old level for assembly, attraction and upgrade work, according to NASA.

Navias said it was excessively soon to cognize what implications the leak mightiness person for the integrity of that spacecraft, and whether it mightiness airs immoderate difficulties for returning unit to Earth astatine the extremity of their mission.

Five different spacecraft are parked astatine the abstraction presumption - 2 SpaceX capsules (a Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon), a Northrop Grumman Cygnus abstraction freighter and 2 Russian resupply ships, Progress 81 and Progress 82.

The ISS, spanning the magnitude of a U.S. shot tract and orbiting immoderate 250 miles supra Earth, has been continuously occupied since 2000, operated by a U.S.-Russian-led concern that includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.

Reporting by Steve Gorman successful Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette successful Washington. Editing by Gerry Doyle

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