Spacewalk shortened by astronaut's cut glove

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A spacewalking astronaut was forced to cut short his work and return to the International Space Station on Wednesday when he found a small hole in his spacesuit glove, NASA said.

Three-time spacewalker Rick Mastracchio was not in any danger but was ordered back to the station's airlock two hours early as a precaution, said mission commentator Kyle Herring. He returned to the station without incident.

"The suit is perfectly fine," Herring said. "There are many layers to the suit as a precaution."

Mastracchio and his partner, Clay Anderson, had completed the major tasks of their spacewalk, which was the third since Endeavour's arrival at the station last Friday. The outing was to prepare the complex for its first new module in six years.

Anderson stayed outside to finish up his work. NASA decided to leave two experiments that the astronauts had planned to retrieve outside the station and reschedule the job.

Mastracchio went back inside at 1:54 p.m. CDT (1854 GMT), after 4 hours and 17 minutes outside. Anderson returned at 3:05 p.m. CDT (1905 GMT), after 5 hours and 20 minutes outside. The spacewalk had been planned for about 6-1/2 hours.

"The gloves were good. I don't know where this hole came from," Mastracchio radioed to Mission Control in Houston.

NASA said the risk is that pressurized air could leak out of the suit, killing the astronaut, although the suits are equipped to maintain pressure for about 30 minutes for holes up to a quarter-inch.

NASA found a damaged glove after a spacewalk in December and implemented safety checks every 30 minutes during future outings to look for damage. The hole in Mastracchio's left glove was found during a routine check.

"It sure got quiet all of a sudden," said Anderson, who had been bantering with his partner for most of the outing.

"Want me to sing?" offered astronaut Tracy Caldwell, who was overseeing the spacewalk from Endeavour's flight deck.

NASA hopes the arrival of the new module, scheduled for October, will not be delayed due to renewed concerns about the space shuttles' fuel tanks.

Shuttle Columbia was destroyed and seven astronauts killed in 2003 because of a heat shield breach caused when a piece of insulation fell off its tank and hit the ship during liftoff.

The tanks were remodeled, but a piece of falling insulation hit shuttle Endeavour during its launch on August 8.

REPAIR DECISION

Managers on Wednesday were still evaluating whether a small but deep cut in two of Endeavour's heat-resistant belly tiles would need to be repaired during another spacewalk.

On Friday, NASA planned to begin addressing the larger issue of whether changes would be needed before shuttle Discovery is cleared for the next space station mission in October.

Discovery is to carry a small compartment that will serve as a connection hub for laboratories built by Europe and Japan that are scheduled to be sent aloft in December and in 2008.

NASA has just three years to finish at least 11 space station assembly missions before it retires the shuttles, which are the only vehicles suited to the job as space freighters.

A final spacewalk of the mission is scheduled for Friday, but NASA is considering delaying the outing to Saturday if the shuttle heat shield needs to be repaired. Another option is to add two more days and a fifth spacewalk to Endeavour's mission, which already has been extended from 11 days to 14.