Russians suspected suit trouble from the start

.... but since the cosmonaut wasn;t complaining about overheating, they
decided no action was needed -- and didn't bother to tell the Americans at
the TsUP either.

"Moscow’s ‘Channel One’ television correspondent Ivan Yevdokimenko had
reported in the noon Friday news program that “the fact that Aleksandr
Kaleri’s spacesuit was not cooling off properly was spotted by Mission
Control minutes after the space walk began.” Yet it wasn’t until three hours
later, when Kaleri reported the “rain” inside his helmet, that Americans
became aware of any problems."

"JimO" writes:

... but since the cosmonaut wasn;t complaining about overheating, they
decided no action was needed -- and didn't bother to tell the Americans at
the TsUP either.

"Moscow’s ‘Channel One’ television correspondent Ivan Yevdokimenko had
reported in the noon Friday news program that “the fact that Aleksandr
Kaleri’s spacesuit was not cooling off properly was spotted by Mission
Control minutes after the space walk began.” Yet it wasn’t until three hours
later, when Kaleri reported the “rain” inside his helmet, that Americans
became aware of any problems."

This seems to support the theory that the kink in the cooling line
could have happened while putting the suit on. If that's the case,
hopefully the Russians will come up with procedures to find such
problems before stepping out of the airlock. You'd think that
something simple like a flow meter (or monitoring the current used by
the cooling pump) would work.

Jeff
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jeff findley wrote in message ...


This seems to support the theory that the kink in the cooling line
could have happened while putting the suit on. If that's the case,
hopefully the Russians will come up with procedures to find such
problems before stepping out of the airlock. You'd think that
something simple like a flow meter (or monitoring the current used by
the cooling pump) would work.

Jeff

You verify proper flow the day before the EVA during the suit checkout
process. A sputnik looking pump and flow gauge are involved. Once
you're wearing the suit, you cycle the russian equivalent of the
temperature control valve to verify cooling response, to make sure
there are no bubbles or kinks in the cooling lines. Ground control
can monitor the temperature response and, of course, the spacewalker
can feel the response. So there really is a way to check these
things.

If the cooling line was kinked during the donning process, you should
be able to find out about it during the 1/2 hour prebreathe before
depress.

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