Cooling Loop News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The decontamination. you know, explain -- >> sure. >> okay, good. >> okay. the outside cooling loop uses ammonia as the working fluid and at very high pressure. so when they replace the broken pump module with the new one, they had to reconnect those lines, those fluid lines to reconnect the ammonia to the box, to the pump module. so they were having trouble getting those connections made, and that's when one of the connectors started leaking ammonia out. those were the white flakes you saw. of course, the liquid ammonia under high pressure comes out into the vacuum of space and turns into a s...

Systems on the international space station. it malfunctioned this week. the pump on the cooling loop automatically shut down. that system makes sure equipment on iss stays cool and keeps working. nasa officials said yesterday they tried one fix that didn't work, and they may have to do a space walk to replace it. i am joined now by michael nasamino, a nasa astronaut and visiting professor at columbia university engineering school. mike, it's a pleasure and honor to have you on the program. tell me this. >> thanks for having me. >> from the scale of things that can go wrong in a space station, ...

Problem on the ground, and they're working with the crew. the crew is saying what can we do to help? they understand the systems, they're ready to go, and they're working closely with the control center. bill: a cooling loop does what on the international space station? >> you've got all this equipment humming along, it builds up heat just like a television set or a refrigerator this your house. believe it or not, it builds up heat. you've got to get that heat away. so ammonia is used just like a car has antifreeze, ammonia takes it away and radiates it to space. your equipment can overheat, a...

>> i hope she's sitting that one out. i wonder if she is a member. >> right. moving to south africa this morning thousands of mourners from all corners of the world are paying their respects to nelson mandela. today is day two of his lying in state at the union building, the site he was sworn in as the country's first black president nearly 20 years ago. he will be buried in his childhood village of qunu. putting an unfortunate blemish on nelson mandela's memorial, news that archbishop desmond tutu's home was robbed while he attended the memorial on tuesday. no arrests have been made and n...

Tell if if a spacewalk is necessary. one of the cooling stations went out yesterday. they had to shut down noncritical systems. the spags station and the crew, nasa says, is not in danger. still, it's worrisome. john zarrella joins me now from miami. >> reporter: the mission management team is meeting this morning and will have to come up with some contingenciecontingen. they have a con contingency for a spacewalk. they did one back in may to fix a cooling loop. back in 2010 they had to replace one of the two pumps out there on the outside of the space station. in fact, the one that failed yes...