NASA has outlined changes for spacesuits to prevent dangerous leaks like the one that occurred last summer and nearly drowned an astronaut in his helmet.
The agency released a report on Wednesday that comprises 49 recommended modifications to make spacesuits safer for NASA astronauts, Scientific American reported.
After Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned inside his helmet in July due to a leak, NASA launched an investigation to improve safety in the suits. The agency tapped outside experts to find out exactly what happened.
"We decided it would be in the best interests of NASA to have an independent group go look at this," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, as reported by Scientific American. "This was a high-visibility enough event that I think it warrants a broader look, not only from an anomaly perspective but from an overall agency perspective."
In the incident last summer, Parmitano was 44 minutes into a spacewalk outside the International Space Station when he reported that water was floating inside his helmet. NASA cut the spacewalk short, and Parmitano and his partner returned to the station. The water inside the helmet had crept to the front, covering Parmitano's nose and eyes and cutting off his radio communication.
"Of all the EVA [extravehicular activity] issues that we've encountered to date, this is probably the most serious," NASA International Space Station Program Manager Mike Suffredini told reporters during a teleconference on Wednesday, according to Scientific American.
The dangerous leak could have been prevented since a similar leak had occurred earlier. The agency recently confirmed that a small leak during a spacewalk the week before wasn't properly investigated.
Many of the paper's recommendations have been implemented into NASA spacesuits, and officials plan to complete the major changes by June. The scary leak is a reminder that NASA needs to stay vigilant, Suffredini said.
"The suit has been around for 35 years, we have quite a bit of experience," he said. "But even in systems we think we know, there's always an opportunity for us to ask the next question and think twice about something that we think we understand."
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