Major Tim Peake, the first astronaut representing the UK to carry out a spacewalk, has described the experience as ‘exhilarating’.
Peake and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra ventured outside the International Space Station on Friday 15 January to replace a broken voltage regulator.
The lack of gravity meant the astronauts needed to be attached to the space station by a special rope in order to stop them from just floating off into space.
The pair were outside the space station for almost five hours and managed to replace the broken piece of equipment, but the operation needed to be cut short after water leaked into Kopra's helmet.
NASA says that spacewalks must be terminated under such circumstances after an incident in 2013 when a European astronaut developed a significant helmet leak and nearly drowned.
The crew collected a sample of the water inside Kopra’s helmet in order to determine the cause of the leak.
About four hours after becoming the first Briton to walk in space, Peake tweeted three pictures of the experience and shared his feelings on looking down and seeing Earth from space.
‘Today’s exhilarating #spacewalk will be etched in my memory forever – quite an incredible feeling!’
Watch Man on the Moon: Part 1 to learn more about space missions.
