NASA has confirmed that a space suit that leaked water into a helmet that could have drown a European astronaut had malfunctioned at least once before, according to a report by AFP.
Italian astronaut Lauca Parmitano almost drowned when his helmet filled with water approximately 45 minutes into a mission on July 16. He barely made it back inside the International Space Station alive.
According to a new report, the helmet leaked one week prior, at the end of his first spacewalk. The space station team admits it should have delayed the second spacewalk in order to fix the issue.
"The event was not properly investigated, which could have prevented putting a crew member at risk a week later," Chris Hansen, chairman of the Mishap Investigation Board, said to reporters in a teleconference, according to AFP.
The issue now being considered among the most serious in the history of the U.S. space program, and the fact that it was preventable doesn't make NASA look very good.
Parmitano has approximately 1.5 liters of water in his helmet at the time he was rescued, according to NASA. It was his calm demeanor that likely saved his life according to investigators.
Originally space station officials assumed the water leak was from a drink bag in the suit. The exact reason is still under review, according to AFP.
"The reason it was not properly investigated, it wasn't an issue of anything being hidden or suppressed, really the issue that there was a lack of understanding of the severity of the event," said Hansen.
NASA has used the same basic space suite for the last three decades, but had never experienced this sort of issue before.
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