Delaware-based space suit maker ILC Dover wants to know why water was leaking inside one of its suits last week during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth.
NASA ordered Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano back inside the station after water began collecting inside his helmet last Tuesday.
ILC Dover is working with NASA to determine what caused that leak. The company manufactures suits for the space agency at its headquarters in Frederica.
ILC’s Director of Technology Development Partnerships Phil Spampinato says ILC was monitoring the space walk when the incident occurred.
“At the time that NASA decided to call a halt to the space walk, we were already working with this team that was assembled to start trouble-shooting what might be the source of the problem,” said Spampinato.
Spampinato says the water could have come from the suit’s cooling system or drinking water reservoir. The issue could also lie in the suit’s back-pack life-support system which is manufactured by a separate company.
Spampinato adds that in 13 years of space walks outside the station, ILC’s suits have logged roughly a thousand hours of use without incident. He notes the suit involved had been worn without problems less than two-weeks prior to the incident during last week's extra vehicular activity or EVA.
“Never has an ILC piece of hardware interrupted an EVA and so I’m quite concerned that this could possibly be an ILC part. That’s not been shown to be true, but the concern is there,” said Spampinato.
NASA has halted any future space walks until the problem is resolved.
ILC has manufactured and provided engineering support for all NASA spacesuits since the Apollo program.