Spacewalk Outside International Space Station Ends Early

Unfortunately, the spacewalk that was scheduled to be held on Friday outside the International Space Station (ISS) by two astronauts Tim Peake and Tim Kopra has been suspended.

But after Kopra reported the bubble, Mission Control made a decision to cut the six-hour spacewalk short – ending it after four hours and 10 minutes.

Tim Kopra of NASA and Tim Peake of the ESA, who is on his first spacewalk, needed to travel about 200 feet from the airlock to fix a broken regulator that is preventing the ISS from drawing power from some of the station’s solar arrays.

“The crew is not in any danger whatsoever”, mission commentator Rob Navias said in a live broadcast of the spacewalk on NASA TV. Once they removed the spacesuits and helmets, the astronauts used a syringe to take a water sample and retrieve the helmet absorption pad to determine how much water was introduced.

According to NASA, the two astronauts went on the mission to replace a failed voltage regulator that compromised one of the station’s eight power channels last November.

Both astronauts returned to the International Space Station safely.

The team s work was precisely timed to coincide with a nighttime pass of the space station to avoid sparks from any residual electrical current in the solar-powered equipment.

Kopra and Peake completed their No. 1 job early in the spacewalk.

Earlier Major Peake, from Chichester, West Sussex, told of his pride in stepping into space with the Union flag on his space suit.

Kopra was reportedly able to taste the water and found it to be extremely cold suggesting that a leaking cooling tube within the suit is to blame.

New flight rules were brought into effect after a similar incident took place in 2013, when Luca Parmitano had a large amount of water fill his helmet.

“It’s great to be wearing it”, answered Peake. The first British citizen to fly in space, chemist Helen Sharman, visited Russias old Mir space station as part of a private competition in 1991.Peake and Kopra, a former Army aviator and attack helicopter platoon leader, rocketed into orbit exactly one month ago aboard a Russian spacecraft.

In an overview of the spacewalk, the European Space Agency (ESA) said every detail was “choreographed minutely”. Ground controllers, at least, didn’t have any problem distinguishing the spacewalkers’ voices. The incident spurred the space agency to add absorbent pads to helmets and establish other precautions for future spacewalks – all of which came in handy on Friday.