Spacesuit battery glitch forces early end to Russian spacewalk
Two Russian astronauts ended their spacewalk earlier than planned on Wednesday as one of them had a battery issue with his spacesuit, Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos said.
Cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev and Denis Matveev, members of the 67th long-term expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), closed the exit hatch of the Poisk small research module at 20:54 Moscow time (17:54 GMT), completing their spacewalk that lasted four hours and one minute.
According to the plan, work overboard the ISS should last six hours and 44 minutes.
"Oleg, drop everything and go back," a flight controller urged Artemiev from mission control in Moscow, as heard on a live feed of space-to-ground audio. "Drop everything and start going back right away... Go back and connect to station power."
Due to a drop in battery voltage in the spacesuit, Artemiev returned inside the Poisk module and connected the spacesuit to the onboard power supply, and Matveev also returned safely inside the station, Roscosmos said.
During the spacewalk, the Russian astronauts continued to prepare for the work of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) and they installed two elbow cameras on the ERA and dismantled the launch ring from it.
The space station, a football field-sized research laboratory in low-Earth orbit, has housed international crews of astronauts for more than two decades, with Russia, the US, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency counted as the laboratory's primary users.
Cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev and Denis Matveev, members of the 67th long-term expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), closed the exit hatch of the Poisk small research module at 20:54 Moscow time (17:54 GMT), completing their spacewalk that lasted four hours and one minute.
According to the plan, work overboard the ISS should last six hours and 44 minutes.
"Oleg, drop everything and go back," a flight controller urged Artemiev from mission control in Moscow, as heard on a live feed of space-to-ground audio. "Drop everything and start going back right away... Go back and connect to station power."
Due to a drop in battery voltage in the spacesuit, Artemiev returned inside the Poisk module and connected the spacesuit to the onboard power supply, and Matveev also returned safely inside the station, Roscosmos said.
During the spacewalk, the Russian astronauts continued to prepare for the work of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) and they installed two elbow cameras on the ERA and dismantled the launch ring from it.
The space station, a football field-sized research laboratory in low-Earth orbit, has housed international crews of astronauts for more than two decades, with Russia, the US, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency counted as the laboratory's primary users.
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