Aging ISS raises safety concerns, future missions at risk, NASA says

NASA plans to decommission the aging ISS, which has been continuously manned since November 2000, by the end of the decade and replace it with commercial space stations in the early 2030s. 

It is also partnering with private companies to develop next-generation spacesuits to address the challenges and safety issues with the decades-old spacewalking suits astronauts wear, known as extravehicular mobility units (EMUs).

"None of our spacesuits are spring chickens, as we would say, and so we expect to see some hardware issues with repeated use," NASA astronaut and Crew-8 commander Matthew Dominick said at a Nov. 8 press conference livestreamed from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

Crew-8 scrubbed a planned spacewalk on June 24 after coolant briefly leaked from an umbilical that connects astronaut Tracy Dyson's spacesuit to the ISS. No one was in danger, NASA officials said. The four astronauts of Crew 8 returned to Earth on October 25.

According to Dominick, NASA closely monitors spacewalks and adjusts procedures as necessary to ensure the crew's safety.

"It's one of those things where we are always at any second - or any point in a process - ready to stop, or ready to go in a different direction, or ready to do a contingency procedure. And that is exactly what we did," he said of Crew 8's aborted spacewalk.