NASA released the report of an independent Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) yesterday that looked into the July 2013 incident when European astronaut Luca Parmitano’s spacesuit helmet filled with water during a spacewalk.  The board’s conclusions sounded familiar themes about schedule and other pressures creating an environment where people did not want to question assumptions or perceptions about matters that could literally make the difference between life and death.  Perhaps most troubling is a determination that this “mishap” could have been avoided if a previous incident a week earlier had been properly investigated.

The technical root cause of the spacesuit failure remains a mystery, but the MIB report listed five organizational root causes that evoke memories of other spaceflight failures that did not have such a happy ending.  In this case, Parmitano lived to tell the tale of feeling like “a goldfish in a fishbowl” as his helmet filled with water while outside the International Space Station (ISS).   NASA now knows that foreign contaminants blocked the spacesuit’s Fan Pump Separator disrupting the flow of water in the suit’s cooling system into the helmet, but is still trying to determine the source of that contamination.

On a spacewalk (officially called Extravehicular Activity or EVA) designated EVA 23 on July 16, 2013, Parmitano began feeling water at the back of his head 44 minutes into the planned 6.5 hour excursion.  The initial assumption was that his drink bag was leaking, but the amount of water steadily increased and the EVA was terminated 23 minutes later.  By the time he was able to return to the airlock, the water covered his eyes, ears and nose impairing his ability to see, communicate and breathe.

Identified as “EV2” in the report (his spacewalk companion, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, was EV1), Parmitano had a total of 1.5 liters of water in his helmet by the time it was removed by fellow ISS crewmembers inside the airlock.

“EV2’s calm demeanor in the face of his helmet filling with water possibly saved his life,” the MIB concluded.

The investigation determined that this was not the first time such a leak occurred.   In fact, the suit had leaked during the previous spacewalk, EVA 22, a week earlier, and the problem was “misdiagnosed” as a leaking drink bag.

“The MIB could not identify a clear reason why the EVA community has a perception that the EVA drink bags leaked.  When presented with the suggestion that the crew member’s drink bag leaked … no one in the EVA community ….challenged this determination and investigated further.  Had that conclusion been challenged, the issue would likely have been discovered prior to EVA 23 and the mishap would have been avoided.”

MIB chairman Chris Hansen briefed the media during a teleconference yesterday and said that the incident “evolved” from three causes:

• Inorganic materials causing blockage of the drum holes in the spacesuit’s water separator, causing water to spill into the vent loop;
• The NASA team’s lack of knowledge regarding this particular failure mode, which led to a delay in recognizing the severity of the event; and
• Misdiagnosis of this suit failure when it occurred on EVA 22.

The report lists the following five root causes “at the organizational level”:

• Program emphasis was to maximize crew time on orbit for utilization;
• ISS Community perception was that drink bags leak;
• Flight Control Team’s perception of the anomaly report process as being resource intensive made them reluctant to invoke it;
• No one applied knowledge of the physics of water behavior in zero-g to water coming from the PLSS vent loop; and
• The occurrence of minor amounts of water in the helmet was normalized

The MIB made 49 recommendations categorized as Level 1, 2 or 3 in priority.  It said that all 16 Level 1 (highest priority) recommendations should be completed prior to allowing “planned” EVAs.

ISS Program Manager Mike Suffredini said during yesterday’s teleconference that all Level 1 and most Level 2 recommendations would be completed before planned EVAs resume, hopefully in the July/August time frame, and the remainder would be completed by the end of the year.

Planned EVAs are in contrast to “contingency” EVAs necessitated by circumstances.  Astronauts have already conducted two contingency EVAs to repair a malfunctioning ISS coolant loop.  Hansen said those two EVAs, in December 2013, were “planned with full cooperation between the ISS Program and the MIB.”

The MIB report and briefing slides and an audio recording of yesterday’s teleconference are available on NASA’s space station news website.

NASA will hold a media teleconference today, February 26, at 2:00 pm EST to discuss findings from its investigation into the events that caused European astronaut Luca Parmitano’s helmet to fill with water during a spacewalk last July.

Audio of the teleconference will be available on NASA’s news audio website.   Participants are:

• Chris Hansen, chairman of the Mishap Investigation Board
• Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations
• Mike Suffredini, International Space Station Program Manager

The Mishap Investigation Board was created on July 23, 2013 following the July 16 incident when Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy were outside the space station performing what was intended to be a relatively routine 6.5 hour spacewalk.  The spacewalk was terminated after 1 hour and 32 minutes as Parmitano’s helmet filled with water.   He later gave a chilling account of what it was like to be “like a goldfish in a fishbowl.”

More details on today’s teleconference are available in NASA’s press release

Miles O’Brien, well known as the science and space reporter for CNN for many years and currently with the PBS Newshour, is recovering from an emergency operation during which part of his left arm was amputated.

O’Brien posted details on his website today.  According to his account, while stacking cases of TV gear onto a cart after a reporting trip to Japan, one of the cases fell on his left forearm.   By the next day, as the pain and swelling grew, he was diagnosed with “acute compartment syndrome” that causes an increase in pressure inside an enclosed space in one’s body.  Doctors recommended a “gruesome” procedure to correct that problem, but during surgery the situation worsened and amputation was the only solution. 

His post ends with “But I am alive and I’m grateful for that…. Life is all about playing the hand that is dealt to you.  Actually I would love somebody to deal me another hand right now — in more ways than one.”

Miles O’Brien.   Photo credit: http://milesobrien.com/?page_id=2866

(H/T to NBC’s science reporter Alan Boyle (@bOyle) and others for spreading the word via Twitter.  We join with everyone in sending our very best wishes to Miles and give him many kudos for writing such an upbeat post at such an extraordinarily difficult time.)

The House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee has scheduled a hearing next week on the possibility of a human flyby mission to Mars in 2021 as the first mission for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft.  No NASA witnesses are scheduled and it is not clear if this concept is for a government-sponsored mission or a new variant of the Inspiration Mars proposal popularized by Dennis Tito.  In any case, it continues the perpetual debate about the future course of the human spaceflight program.

The committee has scheduled an interesting set of witnesses for the February 27 hearing:

• Scott Pace, currently director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.   Pace was a high ranking NASA official during Mike Griffin’s tenure as Administrator and one of the architects of the Constellation program to return humans to the Moon by 2020 and someday send them to Mars.  
• Gen. Lester Lyles (Ret.), currently an independent consultant.  Lyles also is chairman of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) and chaired the NRC’s 2009 study on America’s Future in Space: Aligning the Civil Space Program with National Needs.  He also was a member of the 2009 Augustine Committee created by President Obama to develop options for the U.S. human spaceflight program.
• Doug Cooke, currently Owner, Cooke Concepts and Solutions.  Cooke had a long career with NASA, retiring in 2011 as Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.  He worked under both Mike Griffin and Charlie Bolden in trying to craft NASA’s future human space exploration program.
• Sandy Magnus, currently Executive Director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).  She is a former astronaut who flew on three space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS).

The hearing continues the long running debate over the next steps for the U.S. human spaceflight program beyond ISS.

In 2004, President Bush announced that the United States would return humans to the Moon by 2020 and then go on to Mars.  NASA initiated the Constellation program to build two new rockets, Ares I and Ares V, and a crew spacecraft, Orion, to accomplish those goals.   Shortly after taking office, however, President Obama commissioned a committee headed by aerospace industry icon Norm Augustine to review the Constellation program and identify options for the future human spaceflight program.  It did not make recommendations, but made clear that successfully accomplishing Constellation would require a substantial increase in NASA funding.

In February 2010, as part of its FY2011 budget request, the Obama Administration announced that instead of adding funding for Constellation, it would terminate that program and invest in “game-changing” technologies before choosing an alternate destination or timetable.   Congress was stunned, and under pressure, in April 2010 the President did announce a new destination and timetable — humans would visit an asteroid by 2025 and orbit (but not land on) Mars in the 2030s.

After months of rancorous debate, Congress passed and the President signed into law the 2010 NASA authorization act that directs NASA to continue developing a new big rocket and a crew spacecraft for exploration beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).   The replacement rocket, SLS, is different in design from Ares, but similar in purpose — to send humans beyond LEO.   NASA retained the Orion spacecraft as the crew vehicle and SLS and Orion both are under development today.

Last year the Administration announced a change in the asteroid mission.  Now it wants to bring the asteroid to the astronauts — the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).    Republicans on the House SS&T Committee made clear their dissatisfaction with ARM by prohibiting any spending on ARM in their version of the 2013 NASA Authorization Act that passed the committee on partisan lines last year.  No further action has occurred on that bill.   The FY2014 appropriations bill that is funding NASA does not prohibit spending money on ARM but emphasizes that NASA has not convinced Congress it is the right program to pursue.

Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who paid the Russians a reported $20-25 million to fly to the ISS as the first ISS space “tourist” in 2001, announced early last year that he was developing plans to send two people, preferably a married couple, on a 501-day flyby trip to Mars in January 2018 as a private initiative called Inspiration Mars.  By last December, however, he testified to Congress that he had concluded it should be primarily (70 percent) a NASA mission, conducted in partnership (30 percent) with the private sector and philanthropists.

The committee’s announcement does not indicate whether this hearing is an attempt to learn more about the potential of Tito’s government-private sector idea or something new.  No one identified as representing Inspiration Mars is on the witness list; nor is anyone from NASA.

The first SLS flight, without a crew, is currently scheduled for 2017 and the first flight with a crew is anticipated in 2021.   Trips to Mars are governed by celestial mechanics which permit them every 26 months.  Some of those opportunities are better than others in terms of how much energy is required to get from Earth to Mars and therefore how big of a rocket is needed to transport whatever mass is being launched.  The 2018 opportunity Tito originally wanted to use is excellent from that standpoint.  The next, in 2020, is not as good and they deteriorate thereafter until the early 2030s.  The title of the hearing implies that a mission to Mars is possible in 2021, but that does not seem to fit with celestial mechanics.