Next spacewalk will have an explosive twist

What NASA is doing
The station's third crew member, NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, will support the spacewalk from inside. He'll likely be sequestered inside the Soyuz — ready to rescue the spacewalkers in case they run into trouble and can't get back inside the station by themselves.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, engineers have been vigorously developing support plans for the Russian spacewalk. Along with a set of special tools and tethers, the two most critical items now being attached to the Russian Orlan spacesuits are heat-mounted lamps and, for Konenenko, a head-mounted television camera to transmit live images of what he is seeing in the work area.

Such images could be crucial for developing the correct response to any unexpected snags the cosmonauts might encounter during a spacewalk task they never practiced for back on Earth.

Another spacewalk is planned on July 15, primarily to do previously planned tasks that were set aside for the Soyuz inspection and repair.

If all goes as planned, the bolt in its protective canister will be returned to Earth inside the Soyuz when it lands in October. The Russians will study the bolt to determine if the recent failures represented some fabrication flaw or merely random coincidences.

The production line for Soyuz spacecraft has been under severe strain since late 2006, due to the need to double production rate in order to support an increased crew size aboard the station beginning next year.

Wrong-way descent
The Russians as well as NASA officials have been aware of the Soyuz hardware problem since last October, but it became public knowledge only after last April's dramatic off-course landing of a Soyuz capsule returning from the space station.

Rumors began to circulate about a terrifying out-of-alignment plunge through the flames of atmospheric re-entry, a plunge that exposed the Soyuz capsule's less protected surfaces to searing heat. Then word leaked out that this dramatic descent was actually a replay of the previous landing.

The Russians insist that even though the explosive bolts failed to fire, they eventually tore loose as they were designed to do — and in each case, the Soyuz righted itself and settled into the proper orientation.

Video   Rough return from space April 19: Three astronauts endure a rough ride back from space. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports. Nightly News

By that time, however, the craft’s autopilot had been so thoroughly confused that it abandoned the planned "guided descent" that rolls the capsule left or right to aim it toward the desired landing point. Instead, it descended more steeply, subjecting the crew members to G-forces that were much higher than expected.

Pictures taken after April's landing showed the Soyuz with its nose-mounted thruster pod burned through and severely scorched. This probably reflected the thermal damage from the initial wrong-way-forward plunge, although the Russians have yet to confirm this.

NBC News space analyst James Oberg spent 22 years at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Mission Control operator and an orbital designer. This report was originally published June 26, and has since been updated to reflect new information from NASA and other sources.

MORE FROM HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT

Human Spaceflight Section Front

NASA drops plan to fly new spaceships by 2013 Astronauts ready for risky Hubble mission Shuttle to deliver final service call for Hubble Spacewalkers spruce up the station Phew! Spacewalkers remove explosive bolt NASA to fix damaged launch pad Space shuttle makes ‘beautiful landing’ NASA eases concerns over shuttle objects Why NASA watches out for true UFOs FirstPerson: Your blasts from the past Human Spaceflight Section Front   Add Human Spaceflight headlines to your news reader: