Harmful chemical leaks in space station
(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-18 22:52 HOUSTON - International space
station astronauts pulled an alarm and donned protective gear Monday after
smelling a foul odor that turned out to be a harmful chemical leaking from an
oxygen vent, NASA said.
"We don't exactly know the nature of the spill ... but the crew is doing
well," said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. "It's not a
life-threatening material."
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In this image from NASA TV, International
Space Station astronaut Jeff Williams, left, and European Space Agency
astronaut Thomas Retter of Germany, work in the laboratory of the station,
Monday, Sept. 18, 2006. [AP]
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The crew first reported smoke but it turned out to be an irritant, potassium
hydroxide, leaking from an oxygen vent, Suffredini said.
The crew donned surgical gloves and masks but did not have to put on gas or
oxygen masks, Suffredini said.
NASA declared a spacecraft emergency for only the second time in the
eight-year history of the station. The first time was for a false alarm of an
ammonia spill.
NASA initially said that the crew in the orbiting lab 220 miles above Earth
had been working on a Russian oxygen-generating system known as the Elektron.
But Suffredini said no work on the system had been scheduled at that time.
The Elektron was activated at 6:30 am EDT and shut down about a half hour
later. Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov reported the leak to Mission Control
in Russia at 7:23 a.m. EDT.
Vinogradov described the liquid as transparent, "like distilled water."
"At first, small-sized bubbles escaped, drops, four or five," Vinogradov
said.
US astronaut Jeff Williams described the smell of burning rubber, but Mission
Control in Houston said that odor likely came from the overheating of a rubber
gasket.
"That also jibes with the visible smoke coming from the rubber gasket,"
Williams said.
The station's third crew member is Thomas Reiter of the European Space
Agency, who arrived for his six-month stay in July aboard space shuttle
Discovery. Williams and Vinogradov are slated to return to Earth at the end of
the month.
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