NASA astronaut reveals medical issue that delayed ISS spacewalk

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japanese space agency JAXA were scheduled to dress and exit the International Space Station for a spacewalk on Tuesday. This will not happen due to a minor medical issue involving Vande Hei. NASA said it was not an emergency.

NASA announced the postponement on Monday but did not disclose details of the medical issue. On Tuesday, Vande Hei took to Twitter to thank everyone for their concern. “I have a nerve stuck in my neck which forced us to reprogram today’s spacewalk,” he wrote, saying: “Today just wasn’t the Hello.”

Vande Hei and Hoshide were preparing for an almost seven-hour spacewalk to prepare the station for the installation of a new deployment solar panel.

“The spacewalk is not time sensitive and crew members continue to move forward with other station work and activities,” NASA said. The agency plans to reschedule work after SpaceX’s cargo spacecraft launched on August 28 and after a few planned Russian spacewalks.

Vande Hei is an ISS and spacewalk veteran who previously spent time on the station in 2017 and 2018. He arrived at the ISS in April for a six-month assignment.

The ISS has seen its fair share of enthusiasm recently after hosting a new Russian laboratory module that has temporarily pushed the station out of focus. It was also supposed to host a test flight of the Boeing Starliner, but this the launch was postponed due to technical issues. NASA, the ISS crew and ground crews had to adapt to unexpected circumstances, so the delay in the spacewalk is a fairly minor issue.

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