ISS Coolant Pump Restarted After Successful Spacewalks

Yesterday, two astronauts completed a seven hour spacewalk to finish installation of a spare coolant pump after a failed coolant pump forced a partial shut down of the ISS. As of late yesterday afternoon, that pump is online and operating normally: "The new pump now is considered fully functional, but it will take some time to fully reintegrate the pump and Loop A of the two-loop external cooling system. Teams at mission control are following a schedule that should allow the restored cooling loop to be fully activated and integrated into the station’s cooling system on Christmas Day, Dec. 25. ... Electrical systems that depend on cooling from Loop A will be repowered or moved back from temporary support on Loop B gradually on Thursday, Friday, and throughout the weekend."

Comments

Not so hot any more

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cool.

Re:Not so hot any more

[SJHillman]

It's just to keep the astronauts cool in case they ever have to land the ISS on the sun and can't wait for night time. Duh.

Re:Not so hot any more

[SpaceCracker]

I'm not so sure about that. I thought that the close-to-vacuum of space does not conduct heat that well. The "low" temperature of space just means whatever particles happen to be there on average don't move all that fast. Without a cooling system, the only way for the electronics to lose excess heat is by black-body radiation, which is totally insufficient relative to the rate at which heat is generated (think of your mobile phone, PC, laptop or TV and how hot they get).

Re:Not so hot any more

[fatphil]

Sure, space is always cool, but in these liberated modern times we can twist it into a story about blokes who are living together in space.

I shouldn't mention that, lest the ultra-conservatives conclude this is perverting the wide-eyed youth and decide the to slash the NASA budget.