NASA decided to cut short the third successful spacewalk of the shuttle Endeavour's crew on Wednesday after one of the astronauts noticed a hole in his glove.

Mission Control stressed that the astronaut Rick Mastracchio was not in danger but he was ordered back earlier than scheduled as a precaution as his partner Clayton Anderson wrapped up the work outside.

The astronauts spent five hours and 28 minutes outside the International Space Station instead of planned six hours and 30 minutes. Their mission was to prepare the orbital laboratory for future construction.

NASA engineers are still conducting tests to establish whether the next spacewalk of the crew might have devoted to fixing the failure on the craft's belly, which was possibly caused by ice that broke off the fuel tank a minute after lift off.

The chairman of the mission management team John Shannon assured the gouge does not present any threat to the crew's safety.
"We are cautiously optimistic that we can fly as is," he explained.

Shannon added he is confident crewmembers can perform any necessary repairs, since they have trained extensively for such actions.

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