Astronauts cut short spacewalk due to suit trouble

NASA officials stressed that spacewalker Christopher Cassidy was never in any danger and experienced no symptoms of carbon dioxide buildup.

The trouble cropped up late in yesterday's spacewalk, the third for shuttle Endeavour's crew.

Mission Control notified the crew five hours into the spacewalk that the canister for removing carbon dioxide from Cassidy's suit did not seem to be working properly.
Flight controllers wanted him back inside quickly. That meant fellow spacewalker David Wolf had to go back in early, too.

Their battery replacement work outside the space station was left unfinished. Only two of four new batteries ended up being installed.

Cassidy immediately headed for the hatch. He waited there for Wolf, who was farther out on the space station. Their work site was on the far left side of the orbiting complex, along the framework that holds the huge solar wings and more than 150 feet (45 meters) from the hatch.

"I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to wait for Dave and enjoy the view," Cassidy said.

Both men were back inside and the spacewalk was over a half-hour after Mission Control's initial call to cut it short. It ended up lasting six hours, a half-hour shorter than planned.