Spacewalking astronauts plug leak

CAPE CANAVERAL, coque huawei p9 leica silicone Fla. (AP) Spacewalking astronauts plugged a leak in a cosmic ray detector outside the International Space Station on Saturday, coque p9 plus huawei completing a series of complex repairs to give the instrument new life.

The $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer could resume its hunt for elusive antimatter and dark matter by midweek.

Team members around the world expressed relief as NASA Andrew Morgan and Italy Luca Parmitano wrapped up work on the spectrometer. It was coque iphone vr 46 their fourth coque iphone 6 s aluminium and final spacewalk coque iphone 4 anti choc since November to revive the instrument crippled cooling system.

“Congratulations the AMS pump system is now leak tight,” tweeted the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, which helps run the spectrometer.

Mission Control cautioned it was too soon to declare success with the space station premier science instrument, but noted: “It still has a good heartbeat.”

Last month, Morgan and Parmitano installed new coolant pumps on the spectrometer. They went back out Saturday to check for any leaks in the plumbing.

Parmitano quickly discovered a leak in one of the eight coolant lines the first one he tested and tightened the fitting. “Our day coque iphone 4 matelassé chanel just got a little more challenging,” Mission Control observed.

The line still leaked after a mandatory one coque iphone x price minister hour coque iphone 5 euros wait, and Parmitano tightened it again. Finally, success the leak was gone. “Let us all take a breath,” Mission Control urged. By then, the astronauts were already halfway into their six hour spacewalk.

Mission Control acknowledged the leak added some unwanted “drama” to the spacewalk. “Everybody hearts stopped,” Mission Control told the astronauts. Parmitano wondered aloud what his heart rate was when the leak erupted. “It either flat lined or coque iphone 6s fluorescente spiked, one of the two.”

“It was hard fought today, really coque iphone ringke well done. Cool heads prevailed,” Mission Control said as the spacewalk drew to a close.

Barring further trouble, the huawei p9 lite coque marvel spectrometer launched to the space station in 2011 will have its coolant lines filled with more carbon dioxide Sunday. One pump will be coque huawei p9 lite levis turned on as early as Monday and coque iphone 5s happy the remaining three Tuesday. meilleurs coque iphone 7 plus That could lead to the resumption of science observations by Wednesday.

NASA described the spectrometer spacewalks as the most complicated since the Hubble Space Telescope coque iphone 5s parkour repair missions a coque iphone blanche apple couple coque iphone 6 compatible avec iphone 7 decades ago. Unlike Hubble, this spectrometer was never intended for astronaut handling in orbit, and once it started faltering in 2014, it took NASA years to devise a repair plan.

Morgan and Parmitano had to cut into stainless steel pipes to bypass the spectrometer old, degraded coolant pumps on a previous spacewalk. Then they spliced the tubes into the coque iphone 7 compatible new pumps no easy job when working in bulky gloves. New tools had to be created for the intricate job.

“We did it. We all did it,” Morgan said once he was back inside.

Astronaut Jessica Meir noted that the day ended up being more interesting than anyone envisioned. “But you guys rolled with all the punches and got the job done. Dinner is waiting,” she coque huawei p9 plus aluminium said.

The massive 7 1/2 ton (6,800 kilogram) spectrometer was launched to the space station on NASA next to last shuttle flight. coque iphone angers Until it was shut down late last year for the repair work, it had studied more than 148 billion charged cosmic rays. The project is led by Samuel coque coque ironman huawei p9 lite iphone 6 et 6s identiqueTing, a Nobel laureate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The repairs should allow the spectrometer to continue working for the rest of the life of the space station, or another five to 10 years. It was designed to operate for only three years.

NASA two other astronauts on coque iphone 6 s stylé board, Meir and Christina Koch, performed two spacewalks over the past 1 1/2 weeks to upgrade the space coque iphone 6 amusante station solar power system.

Altogether, this station crew went out on nine spacewalks or 61 hours in total. That more than any other station expedition.

Parmitano, Koch and Russian Alexander Skvortsov return to Earth in less than two weeks.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content…