On his blog, the Italian astronaut has written a detailed account of his experiences on July 16th, where the leaking water made him fear that he would drown.

Parmitano writes “the Sun sets, and my ability to see – already compromised by the water – completely vanishes, making my eyes useless; but worse than that, the water covers my nose – a really awful sensation that I make worse by my vain attempts to move the water by shaking my head. By now, the upper part of the helmet is full of water and I can’t even be sure that the next time I breathe I will fill my lungs with air and not liquid. To make matters worse, I realise that I can’t even understand which direction I should head in to get back to the airlock.”

You can read his full blog post here.

International Space Station astronauts Parmitano (European Space Agency) and Chris Cassidy (NASA) had been conducting their second spacewalk (or EVA) of the month when the incident occurred. The walk had been intended to last over six hours, and was being conducted for two reasons: to perform routine maintenance, and also to prepare the ISS for the arrival of a Russian laboratory module later this year.

However, just over an hour into the spacewalk, Parmitano complained that his helmet was filling with water, and the liquid was getting into his nose and eyes. The incident, which was captured on NASA's livestream of the procedure, led to mission control cancelling the spacewalk. Parmitano used his safety cable to get him back to the airlock. The incident has been called one of the closest calls in spacewalk history.

NASA has linked the leak with the suit’s life support unit, but they have opted to cancel all space walks until they identify the full cause of the problem in the American-designed suit. In the meantime, the Russian astronauts - who use a different model of spacesuit - on board the ISS have been carrying out the necessary spacewalks to prepare for the arrival of the laboratory module.