"Leak" cancels walking tour of the space station

 NASA and the Russian space agency canceled a spacewalk for two Russian cosmonauts as they prepared to exit the International Space Station, Wednesday night, due to an apparent coolant leak from an attached space capsule.

NASA's Johnson Space Center reported that neither they nor the other astronauts on the International Space Station are in danger, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin. The astronauts donned spacesuits and depressurized the airlock when the leak appeared on a live video broadcast.

This was the second time that the two Russian cosmonauts had to cancel a spacewalk. On their first attempt, on November 25, the two astronauts planned to transfer a refrigerant from one module attached to the space station to another.

On that first attempt, the coolant pumps on the two cosmonauts' suits, which are Russian-made Orlan suits, developed a problem. In Wednesday's incident, ground specialists saw a jet of liquids and particles on live video broadcast from space, along with a pressure drop on instruments, emerge from the Soyuz MS-22 capsule that carried Prokopyev and Betlin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the International Space Station in September. .

 The leak was continuing from the Soyuz capsule, which is attached to one of the space station's modules, hours after it was discovered. NASA reports that the two astronauts re-pressurized the airlock, removed their spacesuits, and returned to the space station.

The Russian Space Agency and NASA intend to investigate the Soyuz leak to determine the extent of the capsule's impact. It was not immediately clear what effect the leak would have on the crew's mission. There are five other astronauts aboard the space station.