Officials on the ground issued several warnings to Artemyev to return to the airport.
“Drop everything and start going back immediately” was the last message from the ground before Artemiev confirmed that he was going to the flight lock. Moments later, he re-enters the space station and manages to connect his suit to its power.
Mateev, who was working with Artemyev on the spacewalk, remained outside the space station’s airlock until space controllers decided to end the spacewalk early due to problems with Artemyev’s spacesuit.
On the livestream through a Russian interpreter, Artemyev joked to flight controllers that he “felt better than when he started the spacewalk” after returning to the ISS.
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