The NASA space exits to upgrade the space station power still waiting after an interrupted launch

NASA still has not resumed space exits announced after the cancellation of the launch of US astronaut Nick Hague on the International Space Station earlier this month, but the Johnson Space Center's director, Mark Geyer, said he was confident that everything was going to work out.

"These things happen," Geyer told reporters Wednesday in central Houston. "I think it's important to remember that they use multiple vehicles a year … with this flight rate, I do not think it's unusual that you have these problems."

Earlier this month, 43-year-old Hague and his crewmate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft en route to the space station when the launch was halted, forcing a landing on Sunday. # 39; emergency. It was the first aborted launch of a Soyuz satellite in 35 years. The Hague and Ovchinin were safe and in good condition after landing.

The exits to the Hague space, originally planned for 19 and Thursday October, aimed to improve the station's power systems: a job that Geyer described Wednesday as "a big problem for us". The Hague was scheduled to make space trips with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, who arrived at the station in June.

The batteries to upgrade the electrical systems arrived at the Japanese cargo space station HTV at the end of September. If all went well, Hague and Gerst would have removed the HTV batteries before launching the Northrop Grumman replenishment space shuttle, Cygnus, on November 15th.

Geyer said it would be nice if the astronauts could not get the batteries back there. The engineers would simply reconfigure the systems so that HTV and Cygnus can be moored to the station at the same time.

"We have time," Geyer told reporters Wednesday. "Nothing presses, we can develop a detailed and calm plan."

Russia's final report on what caused the failure of a rocket booster on the Soyuz would be "approved" on October 30, less than three weeks after the incident. Geyer said he expects recommendations for the next step by early November.

"We have experts who participate [in the investigation] with them, "said Geyer. We must take a look at [the recommendations] in detail so that we can be comfortable with the plan and we must do it before setting new launch dates. "

Russia has not yet canceled the next flight to the space station, scheduled for December 20, but has considered moving the launch sooner.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday that the next flight is scheduled to take place in December, as planned.

Russian authorities are still investigating another Soyuz-related problem in August, when astronauts discovered an air leak hole in another Soyuz attached to the station. The hole was plugged, but Russia continues to investigate how that happened.

Geyer said he expected the investigation would be completed in December.

Since NASA's space shuttle program was shut down in 2011, NASA has relied on Russia to transport US astronauts to the station. NASA has spent billions of dollars for the space station during its 20 years of existence, but the agency has no other way to reach it and remains so blocked until Russia eliminates the cause of the aborted launch.

The United States is paying significant sums every year to the space station, or $ 1.45 billion for fiscal 2017, plus $ 82 million to Russia for each seat in the Soyuz.

NASA officials repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether the United States had already paid for the Hague headquarters. If we believe the timetable changes, the first test flights of commercial vehicles Boeing and SpaceX will take place in the summer of 2019.

The vehicles, which would eliminate US dependence on Russia while traveling to the station, were expected to be ready this year. And launch dates could easily slip again.

Mr Geyer said on Wednesday that he expected the two companies to be crews in the next 12 months.

"It's not going to help in the short term with the Soyuz and it's good," he said, adding that once they were operational, there would be three ways to go about it. go to the train station.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at [email protected] or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.