NASA lifted a brief ban on U.S. spacewalks outside the international space station Thursday after engineers cleared the orbital laboratory's spacesuits of potential fire hazards, space agency officials said.The decision allows Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Dan Tani to proceed with preparations for two critical spacewalks next week to continue space station construction.
NASA temporarily suspended U.S. spacewalks earlier this week after an astronaut smelled smoke inside a U.S. spacesuit — known as an Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU — during a ground test at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The ban was largely a precaution in case the incident was due to a generic flaw in NASA spacesuits.
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