Cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were alerted to a minor alarm on 9 October when they saw snowflakes outside the window of the station. The cause was a coolant leak on the external back-up radiator of the Nauka (MLM-U) module, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The coolant leak originated from one inactive manifold of two external cooling loops serving the add-on radiator on Nauka. Thanks to the back-up line, the system retained its functions. Only one loop (the one that was not leaking) was operating since, in the absence of payloads aboard Nauka, the load on the thermal control system was relatively light (Seradata thanks Anatoly Zak’s RussianSpaceWeb.com for the translation). Although Nauka remained operational and ISS operations were unaffected, the leak caused delays to some planned spacewalks.
The International Space Station (ISS). Courtesy: NASA
Besides the coolant leak, the rest of the month saw more menial activities taking place aboard the ISS, including an orbit correction performed via a Progress MS-24 engine firing at 0346 GMT on 19 October, in preparation for the launch of Progress MS-25. The engines of Progress MS-24 fired for 1029.9 seconds with an impulse of 1.5 m/s and the station’s orbit altitude increased for 2.8 km.
Elsewhere in space, Tiangong, the Chinese space station, made a similar move in October when it raised its orbit at 0830 GMT on 11 October using the engine burn of Tianzhou-6 freighter. The orbit raise was 9 km.
