After a long hiatus due to a faulty spacesuit, NASA is planning back-to-back spacewalks on the ISS

Two spacewalks are planned for this month to service science experiments attached to the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) – the first time NASA astronauts are set to venture outside the orbiting laboratory after a series of water leakage incidents they stopped the activities outside the ship.

After a long hiatus, NASA is resuming spacewalks, with four astronauts preparing for two separate missions outside the ISS on Jan. 16 and Jan. 23, the space agency announced in a blog post this week. NASA astronauts will leave the space station for the first time in nearly seven months after faulty spacesuits previously put crew members at risk. The Russian crews were not affected, as two cosmonauts worked outside the station last December.

NASA halted spacewalks after a a horrific spacesuit leak forced the space agency to halt all activity outside the craft. In June 2024 two NASA astronauts were preparing to leave the ISS for a spacewalk when it was suddenly interrupted due to water leakage in the service and cooling umbilical module of astronaut Tracy Dyson’s space suit. “There’s water everywhere,” Dyson could be heard saying during the live broadcast from the ISS.

A few months later, NASA has announced that it has solved the problem by replacing the seal and umbilical cord connecting the spacesuit to the ISS and repressurizing the ruptured spacesuit.

NASA astronauts Sunny Williams and Nick Hague will be the first two astronauts to leave the ISS on Jan. 16 at 7 a.m. ET to replace a speed gyroscope and service the NICER X-ray telescope, an X-ray observatory that studies neutron stars, black holes and other phenomena while attached to the exterior of the ISS. The two will also prepare the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics experimental module mounted on the ISS, for future upgrades.

Another pair of astronauts, Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore, will perform the second spacewalk on January 23. Williams and Wilmore flew to the ISS aboard Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft in June 2024. and they were I was left waiting in low earth orbit for a ride home. Astronauts are scheduled to return to Earth in March aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

NASA’s spacesuits are in desperate need of an upgrade. The suits worn by astronauts outside the ISS are more than 40 years old and nearing the end of their lives. NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMUs) were first designed in the 1970s for the Space Shuttle program. Spacesuits haven’t had the best results in the past few years. In May 2022 NASA has suspended spacewalks outside the ISS following a series of potentially life-threatening incidents of water leaking into astronauts’ helmets during their spacewalks. Earlier in 2013 ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano noticed a water leak in his helmet, forcing him to abruptly end the spacewalk.

NASA turned to its commercial partners to develop new spacesuits, awarding contracts to Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace in June 2022 totaling $3.5 billion. Hopefully the spacesuits will keep it together for the upcoming spacewalks as NASA prepares its new line of suits.