NASA Delays Spacewalk, Citing Space Debris Threat to Astronauts
The New York Times
The agency did not link the postponement of repairs to wreckage caused by a recent Russian antisatellite weapon test.
NASA officials called off a Tuesday spacewalk late Monday night for two of the agency’s astronauts after receiving alerts that nearby space debris could endanger the crew. It was the latest abrupt change to the International Space Station’s operations since Russia blew up one of its old satellites in space earlier this month.
“Due to the lack of opportunity to properly assess the risk it could pose to the astronauts, teams have decided to delay the spacewalk planned for Tuesday, Nov. 30 until more information is available,” NASA said in a statement it posted on Twitter early Tuesday morning.
Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, two U.S. astronauts who arrived at the orbital outpost earlier this month, were scheduled to don their spacesuits and scale the laboratory’s exterior at 7:10 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday. Their mission of about six hours was to replace a broken communications antenna.
