WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A spacewalk by two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station was scrapped after half an hour with water leak reported in one of the spacesuits Monday.
It was the second scheduled spacewalk by Tracy C. Dyson and Mike Barratt aboard the space station that faced an interruption this month.
Dyson and Barratt set their suits to battery power at 8:46 a.m. ET and opened the hatch to the space station's Quest airlock when water started squirting from Dyson's spacesuit into the airlock.
The water was leaking in the service and cooling umbilical unit on Dyson's spacesuit.
After reporting the issue, Space station controllers in Houston cancelled the spacewalk.
The spacewalk lasted a total of 31 minutes, when the crew suits re-pressurized the crew lock section of the airlock at 9:17 a.m. before returning inside the station's equipment lock, NASA said.
In the long-awaited spacewalk, the U.S. astronauts were scheduled to remove a faulty electronics box from a communications antenna on the starboard truss of the space station.
They also had plans to collect samples for analysis to understand the ability of microorganisms to survive and reproduce on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory.
The pair were not in any danger as result of the leak, according to the U.S. space agency.
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