It was canceled after a safety system sounded the alarm on the Soyuz spacecraft, Roscosmos reported
A scheduled spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts was aborted on Thursday just before the airlock hatch was due to be opened, space agency Roscosmos has reported.
Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, who are currently on board the International Space Station (ISS), were scheduled to undertake Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) to do some maintenance work, take photos of Earth, and conduct a scientific experiment. However, the plans had to be canceled after a safety system on the Soyuz MS-22 spaceship, which is docked at the ISS, sounded the alarm.
“A commission is working to establish the cause before a decision is made on further actions of the Russian crew of the ISS and ground specialist,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
The Russian agency didn’t offer any further details about the interruption. The news website space.com reported that a coolant leak had been discovered on the Russian spacecraft about 40 minutes before the spacewalk was supposed to start.
READ MORE: China eyes expanding its new space station
It said Prokopyev and Petelin had already donned their spacesuits and were in the process of depressurizing the airlock when the EVA was called off. The lives of the cosmonauts were not in danger, it added, based on livestreamed footage of the mission.
RT (Russia Today) is a state-owned news organization funded by the Russian government. The information provided by this news source is being included by the Libertarian Hub not as an endorsement of the Russian government, but rather because it is being actively censored by Big Tech, Western governments and the corporate press. During times of conflict it is imperative that we have access to both sides of the story so we can form our own opinions, even if both sides are spewing their own propaganda. The censorship of RT, despite likely being a propaganda outfit for the Russian government, reduces our ability to hear one side of the conflict. For that reason, the Libertarian Hub will temporarily republish the RSS feed from RT. Visit https://rt.com