Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk is preparing to blast off to the International Space Station, and he has been speaking candidly about the mission ahead, including its hazards. Kutryk is set to spend six months aboard the orbiting laboratory, a stint that will place him at the sharp end of one of the most demanding undertakings in human spaceflight.
Kutryk did not shy away from the dangers involved. He noted that the station is a 25-year-old vehicle, and recalled a leak not long ago during which the crew were actually sheltering and preparing for the worst. It would be naive, he said, to suggest that astronauts operate in any kind of carefree bliss or assurance of safety.
He described spending six months on the ISS as a high-risk undertaking, with no doubt about it. The station, he said, is a huge machine flying at 30,000 kilometres an hour in the vacuum of space, where everything about the environment carries risk, even as thousands of people at NASA and around the world work to keep it safe.
Among the most daunting tasks are the spacewalks, or EVAs, which Kutryk called hands down the riskiest thing that astronauts do in outer space. Each one involves putting a crew member into one of the roughly 300-pound suits and sending them outside the front door of the space station, a prospect that is both the ultimate dream and the greatest hazard for those who fly.
On this mission, the crew already know they will have to carry out spacewalks in a couple of cases. One is connected to the power system on the ISS, while the other involves a physics instrument known as the AMS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which has to be fixed as part of the work assigned to the expedition.
The earliest that Kutryk and three other astronauts could launch into orbit is September 12th. As that date approaches, the mission stands as a significant moment for Canada's presence in space, combining scientific work aboard the station with the high-stakes maintenance that keeps the ageing outpost running.