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Washington — A USA A Russian spacewalk outside the International Space Station ended Wednesday hours ahead of schedule after an astronaut discovered an electrical problem with a spacesuit, according to Russian officials.
Oleg Artemyev told Moscow flight controllers about two hours after a six-hour spacewalk when the voltage level in his spacesuit battery began to drop unexpectedly, sending the cosmonaut to the space station. Prompted to repeatedly order the airlock back immediately.
"Oleg, drop everything and come back," as heard on his live feed of space-to-ground audio, an air traffic controller warns of his Moscow mission. urged Artemyev from the control of. "Drop everything and start returning immediately. Go back and connect to station power."
Artemyev returned to the airlock and connected his suit to space station power.
Flight His controller warns Artemyev that if he does not quickly return to the airlock to gain power, the suit's oxygen pump will lose power and risk contacting his controls on the mission. Did. NASA spokesman Rob Navias said Artemyev was "never in danger".
Russian air traffic controllers returned the robotic arm, which another spacewalker, Denis Matveev, had gathered tools and upgraded to its normal position. decided to terminate the spacewalk early. Upon Matveev's return, the spacewalk ended four hours later at 1:54 p.m. ET (1754 Greenwich Mean Time).
The space station is a football-field-sized laboratory in low Earth orbit. is counted as a primary user of
Wednesday's spacewalk, the 252nd in the station's history, is planned to install cameras and coordinate a European robotic arm attached to the Russian Nauka research module. (Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Chris Reese, Alex Richardson, and Diane Craft)
