posted 01-18-2022 10:10 PM               

ISS Expedition 66: Russian Spacewalk 51

Two Russian cosmonauts will venture outside the International Space Station at about 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, Jan. 19, to conduct a spacewalk to ready the new Prichal module for future Russian visiting spacecraft.

Expedition 66 commander Anton Shkaplerov and flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos will begin the planned seven-hour spacewalk by exiting the Poisk module on the space-facing side of the station's Russian segment. During the spacewalk, the cosmonauts will install handrails, rendezvous antennas, a television camera and docking targets on Prichal, which automatically docked to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module in November.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three cosmonauts, who will be part of the Expedition 67 crew, is the first scheduled docking to Prichal, planned for March.

Shkaplerov will serve as extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1) and will wear a Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes. Dubrov will wear a spacesuit with blue stripes as extravehicular crew member 2 (EV2). This will be the third spacewalk in Shkaplerov's career and the fourth for Dubrov. The first spacewalk at the station in 2022 also will be 246th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

posted 01-19-2022 01:59 PM               

Cosmonauts ready docking port for new arrivals

Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov began the spacewalk at 7:17 a.m. EST (1217 GMT) on Wednesday (Jan. 19) as the two cosmonauts opened the hatch of the Poisk mini-research module. Once outside, they deployed the Strela telescoping boom, which they used to traverse Poisk and the multi-purpose laboratory module Nauka to reach their worksite beside Prichal.

Shkaplerov and Dubrov worked fairly close to schedule as they completed the tasks to provide power, communications and route data to and from Prichal and the rest of the space station. The two cosmonauts uncovered and tied down handrails to aid future spacewalks, connected cables and installed antennas for the "Kurs" automated docking system, as well as repositioned a TV camera to provide coverage of the activities outside the new module.

Shkaplerov and Dubrov also installed docking targets to be used by spacecraft approaching Prichal.

At times during the spacewalk, Shkaplerov and Dubrov jettisoned thermal covers, containers and antennas that they removed from Prichal or were no longer needed. The spent hardware was pitched overboard opposite the direction that the space station was traveling to avoid their being reencountered in orbit. The covers and antennas will eventually fall back to Earth and burn up upon entering the atmosphere.

The spacewalk ended at 2:28 p.m. EST (1928 GMT) after 7 hours, 11 minutes.

Wednesday's spacewalk was the third in Shkaplerov's career and fourth for Dubrov. Shkaplerov has now logged 21 hours and 39 minutes working in the vacuum of space. Dubrov's total is now 29 hours, 49 minutes.