"It's so cold in here, one could catch a cold," said Kaleri after reentering the ISS with fellow Expedition 8 crewmember Michael Foale. "I can tell now how warm I was."
Kaleri's spacesuit glitch occurred almost three hours into the extravehicular vehicular activity (EVA), which began at 4:17 p.m. (EST) on Feb. 26, as he and Foale were completing the installation of Matroshka, a European experiment designed to measure the effect of space radiation on a mock human body.
At about 7:00 p.m. (EST), Kaleri reported seeing drops of water on the inside of his spacesuit's visor. A short time later he told Russian flight controllers in Korolev, Russia that he was feeling warmer, nothing uncomfortable.
"Right now I'm not too hot," Kaleri said about 30 minutes later. "My head feels normal, the feet are warm, but possibly because I'm wearing woolen socks."
NASA and Russian station officials said Kaleri was never in life-threatening danger, nor did he report feeling uncomfortably hot, but flight controllers felt it better to cancel the remainder of the spacewalk after an attempt to recycle the cosmonaut's cooling system failed.
Foale's Orlan spacesuit, on the other hand, functioned flawlessly and he and Kaleri were able to complete most of their major tasks before the flight controllers cut the spacewalk short prematurely. The unfinished projects include the planned relocation of several reflectors associated with the future use of the European Autonomous Transport Vehicle, as well as the replacement of a Russian experiment studying the accumulation of thruster residue outside the ISS.
NASA officials said those tasks will most likely be bumped to a later spacewalk, possibly by the two crewmembers of Expedition 9 scheduled to launch in April.
A smooth start
Before Kaleri's suit glitch, he and Foale were off to a smooth start of what was expected at the time to be a five hour and 45 minute spacewalk.
Quickly after leaving the Pris Russian docking compartment, the spacewalkers replaced a suitcase-sized cassette container that measured the effects of long-term space exposure to various materials from its location on the rear of the compartment. The Russian experiment was one of three such containers that Expedition 8 crewmembers were scheduled to retrieve.
"I'm feeling completely wonderful," Foale said during a scheduled rest period an hour into the spacewalk.
After the break, Foale and Kaleri moved toward the forward end of the Zvezda service module, where they packed up one of two Japanese experiments to study the space environment. The experiment, known as the Microparticle Capturer Space Exposure Environment Device (MPAC SEED) was folded into the size of a briefcase, then prepared for the eventual return to Earth. The spacewalkers also moved second MPAC SEED experiment over to the former location of its twin.
By far the most labor intensive was the Matroshka installation, which Foale and Kaleri lashed to handrails on the forward area of the Zvevda module. Built to mimic the human body, complete with bone-material and simulated organs, skin and "spacesuit" container, the mannequin's power and data cables were plugged into the Zvezda module just as Kaleri began to notice a problem with his spacesuit.
While flight controllers tried to find the source of Kaleri's suit malfunction, Foale attended to the remaining two cassette containers and after three hours and 55 minutes, the two returned to the space station.
Station unmanned
A spacesuit glitch was not the first problem that NASA and Russian space station managers expected during the Expedition 8 spacewalk.
NASA and Russian officials spent months preparing the ISS to run autonomously, since both Foale and Kaleri were required to leave the vehicle to attend to station's instruments. Traditionally, at least one member of the ISS crew remained aboard during a spacewalk. But Expedition crews have been limited to two people since NASA's space shuttle program was grounded after the Columbia disaster.
Before leaving the ISS, Foale closed many of the space station's hatches with only the ventilation system open to allow for fire detection, should the emergency arise.
Like Foale's spacesuit, the unmanned space station performed perfectly, which may be encouraging to station manages and Expedition 9 crewmembers cosmonaut Gennady Pedalka and NASA space science officer Michael Fincke. The two are scheduled to perform not one but two spacewalks during their six-month stay aboard the ISS, one of which includes the installation of a television camera and other equipment for the ATV vehicle's docking system.
Thursday's spacewalk was the fifth jaunt in space for Kaleri and the fourth for Foale. It was also the 52th EVA dedicated to station upkeep or construction and the 27th spacewalk from the ISS.
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