Spacewalk Halted by Astronaut’s Suit Flaw
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Two astronauts cut short their spacewalk and hurried back to the International Space Station on Wednesday after a suit problem resulted in rising carbon dioxide levels for one of the men.
Mission Control notified the crew five hours into the spacewalk that the canister for removing carbon dioxide from the suit of one astronaut, Cmdr. Christopher J. Cassidy of the Navy, did not seem to be working properly. Commander Cassidy’s fellow spacewalker, Dr. David A. Wolf, returned early to the space station, too.
The two were working on replacing batteries on the solar wings of the space station. The batteries store power collected by the solar wings.
The astronauts’ work was left unfinished. Only two of four new batteries were installed.
The work site was more than 150 feet from the hatch.
The spacewalk, the crew’s third in five days, lasted six hours, a half-hour shorter than planned.
Two more are planned, on Friday and Monday. Mission Control said the unfinished battery work from Wednesday would be squeezed into one of the next spacewalks.