Two astronauts will make a last minute spacewalk Saturday morning, to try to fix an ammonia leak in the international space station’s power system.
According to CNN, the leak was detected early Thursday morning, and was causing ammonia to enter space. It could be seen in the form of “flakes of snow” — at a rate of 5 pounds per day, said Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager.
The walk will start Saturday morning, and last for six and a half hours. Spacewalks are rarely done on such short notice, but NASA said the six-member crew is not in danger.
Ammonia is used to cool each of the solar arrays that provide electricity to station systems.