Suit problem cuts spacewalk short

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Two astronauts cut short their spacewalk and hurried back to the safety of the international space station Wednesday after a suit problem resulted in rising carbon dioxide levels for one of the men.

NASA officials stressed that spacewalker Chris Cassidy was never in any danger and experienced no symptoms of carbon dioxide buildup.

Five hours into the spacewalk, Mission Control notified the crew that the canister for removing carbon dioxide from Christopher Cassidy’s suit did not seem to be working properly. Flight controllers wanted him back inside quickly. That meant fellow spacewalker David Wolf had to go back in early, too.

Their battery-replacement work outside the space station was left unfinished. Only two of four new batteries ended up being installed.

Cassidy immediately headed for the hatch. He waited there for Wolf, who was farther out on the space station. Their work site was on the far left side of the orbiting complex, along the framework that holds the huge solar wings and more than 150 feet from the hatch.

“I’m just going to sit here and I’m going to wait for Dave and enjoy the view,” Cassidy said.

Both men were back inside and the spacewalk was over a half-hour after Mission Control’s initial call to cut it short. It ended up lasting six hours, a half-hour shorter than planned.

The unfinished battery work will be added to Friday’s spacewalk, the fourth of five planned for this mission. Battery work already had been scheduled for Friday; now astronauts will have to install four for a total of six by flight’s end.

Neither Cassidy nor Wolf — nor any of the 11 astronauts inside — sounded particularly stressed as they dropped everything and headed back in. Wolf noted that his idea for stringing safety tethers together, with minimal hookups in case of an emergency, “worked like a charm.”

“Never thought we’d use it,” he said as he made his way toward the hatch, hand over hand.

Until the suit problem, the spacewalk had been progressing without any major problems, save for some stubborn bolts on the batteries. The astronauts were running behind, though, because of the difficult work. They had removed three of the nine-year-old batteries from the space station and plugged in two new ones, when they got the call to wrap it up.

These large nickel-hydrogen batteries are critical, storing the power collected by the space station’s solar wings. The old batteries were launched in 2000. NASA is uncertain how long those original batteries might last and wants new ones installed before the old ones die.

The new batteries cost $3.6 million apiece.

All of the old batteries will be returned to Earth aboard Endeavour. The shuttle, in orbit for a week now, will undock from the space station Tuesday. Landing is set for July 31.