An hour and a half into Tuesday's spacewalk, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency reported water floating behind his head inside his helmet, and Mission Control decided to end the excursion early, according to NASA.
Chris Cassidy and Parmitano were ordered by Flight Director David to return to the Quest airlock and re-enter the International Space Station (ISS). The spacewalk began at 7:57 a.m. EDT, and ended at 9:39 a.m. when the airlock was repressurized, for a total duration of 1 hour, 32 minutes.
The leak in Parmitano's helmet was not an immediate hazard to the astronaut, but Cassidy stayed behind to take care of clean-up procedures before returning to the airlock.
"Cassidy and Parmitano finished the installation of bypass jumpers to provide power redundancy to critical station components. Cassidy and Parmitano had planned to route additional cables for a new Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module set to arrive later this year," NASA said in a news release. "Replace a video camera on the Japanese Exposed Facility experiment platform, relocate wireless television camera equipment, troubleshoot a balky door cover over electronic relay boxes on the station's truss and reconfigure a thermal insulation over a failed electronics box that was removed from the station's truss last year."
Both astronauts wore protective spacesuits and were equipped with emergency jet backpacks, which are a safety precaution that allows them to get back to the ISS if the safety tethers were to break.
Today's spacewalk is the sixth of Cassidy's career, and the second excursion for Parmitano, the first Italian astronaut to walk in space. The duo enjoyed the spacewalk on July 9, and let it be known to those watching the live broadcast.
"Life is good," Cassidy told the live viewers during the last minutes of their excursion.
"Couldn't be better," Parmitano responded.
Below is the live stream from the International Space Station.
