wrote on 12/24/2013 :
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/statio...223evapreview/

"At the end of (the Saturday spacewalk), we pressurized the airlock
and once we did that, we had an inadvertent switch throw that turned
some water on to go to one of the suits," Flight Director Judd Frieling
said Monday. "That inadvertent switch throw made us question whether
we got some water in the sublimator module of one of those suits while
it was at pressure."

NASA originally planned the second spacewalk for Monday, but the
inadvertent switch throw at the end of the first outing that allowed
water to enter Mastracchio's backpack prompted flight controllers to
change their plans. While the suit was not damaged, its internal
systems must be thoroughly dried out and that can take a week or so
to accomplish.


The other failure months ago came very close to drown an astronaut during
his EVA. It was an unexpected design failure. But this new one is
something they had to know before. An "inadvertent switch throw" is
something that has not allow to happen by design. A space suit is a
crucial live and mission saving device. It has to work as simple as
possible because it is an emergency tool too.

Imagine a Mars mission were you have an EVA to repair something. Unplanned
a tired astronaut has to go out to seal a pipe. If he does a wrong switch
that disables the suite for a week - you may lose mission or even the crew.
I would not blame the astronaut for the mistake. This guys are really good.
But regarding some of the NASA management engineers I have my doubt (again).


Well, consider how many EVAs have been performed with this suit design
over the years, before this came up. That's not to say it isn't a
design error, but either they had specific operations plans to avoid it
or it wasn't an obvious flaw before now.

/dps

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