Author Topic: Spacewalk gloves in focus following Beamer incident during STS-116 (Read 6109 times)

Chris Bergin · « **on:** 04/13/2007 03:59 am »

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5074

Review: Live thread for STS-116 EVA 3: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=5742&start=1

realtime · « **Reply #1 on:** 04/13/2007 02:56 pm »

Just curious, what's the drill if a spacewalker gets a hole in the suit? Assuming it's small and reachable by one or the other astronaut, is there a "patch" procedure, or are we going to have to lose people first?

Jim · « **Reply #2 on:** 04/13/2007 04:27 pm »

The high pressure purge system adds O2 to maintain pressure for x minutes

Lee Jay · « **Reply #3 on:** 04/13/2007 04:50 pm »

Is there an emergency ingress procedure? You know, fly in the hatch, slam the door and pressurize or something? The normal procedure takes between 30 minutes and an hour, IIRC.

Lee Jay

Martin FL · « **Reply #4 on:** 04/13/2007 08:40 pm »

MMOD threat would be the real problem. I wonder how the helmets would stand up to an MMOD strike.

collectSPACE · « **Reply #5 on:** 04/13/2007 08:43 pm »

As I was scheduled to interview NASA's EVA Office Manager Stephen Doering today on an unrelated topic, I ended our call by asking if he would describe the "hole" and the steps being taken to understand it. As part of his comprehensive reply, posted here, he commented, "I'll characterize this as the worst glove damage we have seen in the history of going EVA for the U.S. program."

Quote

Lee Jay - 13/4/2007 11:50 AM

Is there an emergency ingress procedure?

Doering also answered what would have happened had there been a pressure leak:

Quote

[Curbeam] would have gotten a high-flow message or a pressure-drop message on the caution and warning system on the suit and it would have sent him back to the airlock. Depending on the magnitude of the leak, it would have been either — we have three ways, three different criteria of getting back to the airlock. We have a terminate EVA or an abort EVA.

Terminate EVA means you clean things up, if the leak is enough that you have time, therefore, clean-up the systems, safe the work-site that you're working on and make your way back to the airlock and do a nominal repress.

Abort EVA is to get back to the airlock, get hooked up to the umbilical as quickly as possible, and then the third part of that is whether you do a normal repress or an emergency repress.

And there's enough gas in the secondary oxygen pack for 30 minutes.

http://collectspace.com/ubb/Forum30/HTML/000521.html

Gekko0481 · « **Reply #6 on:** 05/20/2007 09:20 am »

Sorry if this a tad off topic, but can someone explain was IIRC means? Thanks

nacnud · « **Reply #7 on:** 05/20/2007 09:43 am »

If I recall correctly - IIRC

Gekko0481 · « **Reply #8 on:** 05/20/2007 09:46 am »

Cheers

marsavian · « **Reply #9 on:** 05/25/2007 05:38 pm »

new inspection procedures now in place

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070525_glove_cut.html

James Lowe1 · « **Reply #10 on:** 05/26/2007 04:51 am »

It appears Space.com and the Houston papers are finally catching up with this story, several months after it was reported here.

Jamie Young · « **Reply #11 on:** 06/13/2007 01:07 am »

So fa so good with the gloves!

MKremer · « **Reply #12 on:** 06/13/2007 02:31 am »

Quote

Jamie Young - 12/6/2007 8:07 PM

So fa so good with the gloves!

Though I doubt folks doing EVAs have ever treated their gloves like a regular pair of work gloves down here, the additional attention being paid over and over now to glove conditions may also be making EVA crewmembers just a little bit more careful when handling/manipulating hardware, what and where to grab for control and translations, and using their various tools.

Blade_Pride · « **Reply #13 on:** 06/14/2007 05:50 pm »

So was that part of Beamers glove that was found on yesterdays EVA? I remember him saying he was going to go get it, but that was the last I heard about it.