Space Walk Cut Short

Malfunctioning Space Suit Ends 2-Astronaut Walk To Repair Station

(CBS/AP)  A riskier-than-usual spacewalk outside the international space station was cut short Thursday night because of a malfunction that left one of the two crewmen with a warm, damp suit.

Astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri had left the space station empty when they ventured out, the first time the 5-year-old outpost had ever been unattended during a spacewalk. It was necessitated by the grounding of NASA's shuttle fleet in the wake of the Columbia accident.

Everything went well until three hours into the job, when Kaleri reported that the inside of his helmet was wet. He said the device in his spacesuit that regulates temperature and removes condensation was not working right.

"It's strangely warm," Kaleri said. A few minutes later, he radioed: "It's amazing. I have rain inside the helmet. I have water on the visor."

Russian space officials decided to cut the spacewalk short and advised Kaleri to not exert himself. Foale continued working as Kaleri rested. The cosmonaut said he could see well through the visor, even though it had a water film.

"I'm not moving too fast so I don't overheat," Kaleri said as he made his way through the hatch. Foale joined him soon afterward, and they closed the hatch.

The crewmen ventured outside late Thursday afternoon, wearing Russian spacesuits, to install new scientific experiments and check for any damage from space junk that may have caused a strange metallic noise heard last November.

They managed to complete half their work before the cooling device in Kaleri's suit failed, said NASA spokesman Rob Navias. The spacewalk was supposed to go 5½ hours; it lasted three hours and 55 minutes.

Flight controllers in Houston and Moscow watched over all the systems orbiting 230 miles up and were prepared, after months of safety analyses, to call the veteran spacewalkers back in if a fire, decompression or some other emergency arose. What ended up happening — a spacesuit malfunction — was not nearly as critical but still worrisome, especially with no one inside to help.

Normally, a third crew member stays inside during a spacewalk to oversee the systems, watch over the two outside and help them once they re-enter. But the space station has had only a two-man crew since last spring to conserve supplies while the shuttle is grounded.

With shuttle flights off until next spring, an initially uneasy NASA agreed with the Russian Space Agency that it could not keep waiting for a three-person crew in order to perform a spacewalk.

For decades, the Russians left their Salyut and Mir space stations unattended during spacewalks.

Before the spacesuit malfunction, Foale and Kaleri took out trays of scientific samples to replace ones that had been hanging outside for more than two years to gauge the effects of space debris and other cosmic wear and tear. They also put out a radiation-measuring doll.

The space doll — a "matryoshka," or traditional Russian nesting doll — is actually a close-to-lifesize head and torso made of soft material to simulate human tissue, with embedded sensors to measure radiation exposure.

Scientists want to know how much solar radiation a spacewalker receives, critical information as NASA strives to meet President Bush's goal of sending astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars.

The spacewalkers did not have time to replace a thruster contamination-measuring kit or relocate navigational reflectors for a new unmanned cargo ship due to arrive next year.

Foale and Kaleri have been aboard the space station since October. They will be replaced in April by a two-man crew that expects to perform two spacewalks.