Astronaut interrupts mission after battery runs out

A Russian spacewalk outside the International Space Station ended prematurely after an astronaut discovered an electrical problem in his suit, US and Russian officials said, according to Reuters.

Oleg Artemyev spent nearly two hours on a six-hour spacewalk when voltage levels in his suit's battery began to drop unexpectedly, prompting flight controllers in Moscow to repeatedly order the cosmonaut to immediately return to the station's airlock.

In a live audio broadcast, the flight controller told Artemyev from the mission control center in Moscow: "Oleg, leave everything and come back... Leave everything and start returning at once... Go back and connect the suit to the station's power supply."

Artemyev returned to the airlock and connected his suit to a power source.

The observer warned Artemyev that he would risk cutting off power to the oxygen pump in his suit, as well as calling the control center, if he did not immediately return to the airlock for power.

But Rob Navias, a NASA spokesman, said Artemyev was "not in any danger at all."

The Russian control team chose to end the mission after the other cosmonaut Denis Matveev collected his tools and returned the robotic arm they were about to upgrade to normal.

With Matveev's return, the spacewalk will have taken four hours.

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