Spacesuit Issue ends Spacewalk Early

Mission control in Houston began seeing unusually high amounts of carbon dioxide in the spacesuit of Endeavour astronaut Chris Cassidy this afternoon, forcing the two back in the airlock after cutting short their planned work.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) can effect the human body in several ways. From being nausea, having headaches to even moving slower than normal. What mission control saw was slightly higher CO2 amounts due to an issue with the air scrubber in Cassidy's suit, and he was in no real danger.

"At no time was the crew in danger. The CO2 levels we saw inside the spacesuit were below what we manage to on the International Space Station and the space shuttle," stated space station Flight Director Holly Ridings this evening. "The crew is doing just great and they are ready to go out on the next EVA."

Today's spacewalk, the third of five planned on this STS-127 mission, began at 10:32 am EDT, as the space station flew 221 miles over Europe.

Rookie spacewalker Cassidy and now seven-timer David Wolf went to work as they removed a bit of insulation from the Japanese Kibo module and prepared the Japanese Exsposed Facility for several experiments. At the time of the CO2 alarm, they had replaced only two of four planned batteries which control the movement of the Port 6 solar array drive system.

The 216th American spacewalk concluded at 4:31 pm. As of this evening, the total space station asssembly spacewalk time stands at 798 hours and 30 minutes.