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Spacewalk aborted after water leaks into astronaut’s helmet

He later thanked his colleagues again in a second tweet, writing: “Wrapping up today’s spacewalk activities”.

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The first spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) for this year had to be terminated Friday after one of two astronauts on the task reported a small amount of water leakage into his helmet. Kopra and Peak, with the help of astronaut Scott Kelly, will now retrieve a water sample from the spacesuit in an effort to determine how the water formed inside of Kopra’s helmet.

An hour later, Kopra was safely inside his orbiting home, along with Timothy Peake, who attracted his own headlines by becoming Britain’s first spacewalker Friday.

Chief astronaut Chris Cassidy, who was Parmitano’s partner during the aborted 2013 spacewalk, said the cold temperature of the water indicated a leak from somewhere in the spacesuit’s backpack, which contains a cooling system.

NASA previously said the suit worn by Virts has a history of “sublimator water carryover”.

The photo showed nearly the entirety of Planet Earth in the reflection of his helmet, part of the ISS and his fellow astronaut accompanying him on the walk, Tim Kopra.

The spacewalk took Kopra and Britain’s rookie spaceman Peake only two hours to complete the replacement of a failed voltage regulator that caused a loss of power to one of the station’s eight power channels last November.

Mr Peake said: “It’s wonderful, the photographs from space are incredible”. He became the first spacewalker to wear the Union Jack on the shoulder of his suit.“Were all watching, no pressure!” Former Beatle Paul McCartney said via Twitter.

Earlier also, in 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano faced leakage in his helmet. Now its explored space.”Replied Peake: “Its great to be wearing it, a huge privilege, a proud moment.”Peake, a helicopter pilot chosen by the European Space Agency, is Britains first official astronaut. A handful of previous spacewalkers held dual U.S.-English citizenship, but flew as Americans for NASA. 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.

In an interview on NASA TV, Mr Cassidy called it “a significant concern”.

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Foale, however, was an astronaut for NASA, not the European program. “This is how I measure success: 1)crew-safe 2)main objective-completed”.

Expedition 46 On International Space Station