Station Leak Highlights NASA's Emergency Plans

Sept. 18, 2006 — -- No one gets excited in Mission Control during emergencies.

Astronaut Shannon Lucid was remarkably low key when she took the call from the space station crew reporting smoke on the space station today.

That call prompted Mission Control to declare a state of emergency.

What happened?

Mission Control in Russia had instructed its cosmonaut Panel Vinogradov to restart the Elektron, which is used to generate oxygen on the space station.

Nineteen minutes later, he shut it down after he reported smelling something funny and seeing light smoke.

The smoke turned out to be a fluid leak.

Astronaut Jeff Williams advised Mission Control in Houston that the fluid was "KOH [potassium hydroxide] from the Elektron."

In the end, it was no big deal.

It does illustrate, however, how closely the International Space Station, the space shuttle and the Soyuz -- the Russian version of the shuttle -- are interlinked.

If there had been a fire on the space station, the crew has a way to get off safely.

There is always a Soyuz docked to the space station that serves as an escape vehicle.

The irony is this -- another Soyuz is on the way to the International Space Station now, carrying a crew of three, including Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist, who paid $20 million for her 10-day vacation in space.

If the space station has to be abandoned, where will the approaching Soyuz go?

Experts say it would necessitate a quick turnaround back to a landing in Kazakhstan.

What about the space shuttle's safety net?

Atlantis is currently orbiting 70 nautical miles away from the space station. The orbiter undocked from the space station Sunday so its crew could begin a methodical survey of the thermal protection system.

The reasoning is this: If something goes wrong, Atlantis will be nearby. It can return to the space station, and the crew can stay on the space station until another shuttle is launched to come get it.

But what if there is no space station for the crew to return to in an emergency?

That is a prospect no one at NASA wants to face. But it is something NASA will have to consider if it launches a mission to save the Hubble Space Telescope.

Wayne Hale, the space shuttle program manager, understands one of the barriers to a Hubble mission will be how to rescue a crew if it gets into trouble.

He has proposed processing shuttles in tandem, and having a backup on the other launch pad ready to go when the Hubble Mission launches.

Hubble, he says, is worth the effort.

"I think Hubble is the shuttles' crowning achievement because it is the most important science instrument of the last century," he said in an interview with ABC News earlier this year.

"I think the capability to keep Hubble going is a huge capability. We will take risks when we go to that mission, and frankly we haven't been authorized to do that mission. I hope we demonstrate we have the wherewithal to go safely do it, and get the authority to proceed."

A decision to give Hale the authority to proceed won't come until October.