Two Russian astronauts ended their spacewalk earlier than planned on Wednesday as one of them had a battery issue with his spacesuit, Russia's state space corporation Roscosmos said.

Cosmonauts Oleg Artemiev and Denis Matveev, members of the 67th long-term expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), closed the exit hatch of the Poisk small research module at 8:54 p.m. Moscow time (1754 GMT), completing their spacewalk that lasted 4 hours and 1 minute.

"Oleg, you must return to the airlock as soon as possible," the Earth-based Russian mission controllers ordered, more than two hours into his trip outside the International Space Station (ISS). "Drop everything and go back," he was told multiple times, according to a live English translation broadcast by NASA.

The orders came soon after Artemyev reported abnormal voltage readings for his spacesuit's battery. "Please do not worry, everything is fine. You are OK," the controllers said.

"Me? Worry? No way," responded 51-year-old Artemyev, who took over the commander position of the ISS in May from American astronaut Thomas Marshburn. Artemyev made his way back into the airlock where he successfully reconnected to the ISS's main power. He then waited for the second cosmonaut, Denis Matveyev, to gather all the supplies they had used on their mission, reenter and pressurize the airlock.

According to the plan, work overboard the ISS should have lasted 6 hours and 44 minutes.

During the spacewalk, the Russian astronauts continued to prepare for the work of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) and they installed two elbow cameras on the ERA and dismantled the launch ring from it.

"The astronauts are in good health. Work in progress will be completed during the next spacewalks," Roscosmos said. "The duo was never in any danger during the operations," NASA said in blogpost.

Wednesday's mission was the seventh spacewalk for Artemyev and the third for Matveyev.

(With input from agencies)