Cause Of Spacewalker's Near-Miss Revealed

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<b>Cause Of Spacewalker's Near-Miss Revealed</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />Miscommunication was to blame for a potentially dangerous incident on the International Space Station in which commander Leroy Chiao accidentally wandered into a hazardous area during a January spacewalk, NASA officials revealed on Thursday.<br /><br />During the spacewalk on 26 January, the space station's gyroscopes stopped working, so Russian ground controllers fired thrusters to keep the station correctly oriented. When the thrusters fired, Chiao was within metres of the blasts - in an area that should have been kept clear. <br /><br />"It was just a miscommunication between the crew and the ground," says Annette Hasbrook, a NASA flight director. Chiao had moved to a new spot outside the station without telling Russian ground controllers. They asked Chiao if he was on circular handrails, and he replied that he was - but they were different handrails. The other ISS crew member - Russian flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov - was also outside but not in the immediate vicinity of the thrusters.<br /><br />Managers were concerned the thruster fire could have deposited hazardous materials onto Chiao's spacesuit, which was brought back into the cabin. But Hasbrook says the firing happened early enough in the 5.5-hour spacewalk that any noxious material on the suit would have dissipated before the astronauts returned inside. In addition, Chiao and Sharipov checked one another's spacesuits before they climbed into the airlock and neither noticed anything amiss.<br /><br />Hasbrook says NASA is working with Russia to develop clearer language and instructions to astronauts during spacewalks to avoid future mishaps.<br /><br />"Phantom torque"<br />Specialists in Moscow, Russia, and Houston, Texas, US, are also trying to determine what caused the gyroscope problem in the first place. Hasbrook says the gyroscopes experienced a "phantom torqu