posted 11-18-2020 12:00 AM               

ISS Expedition 64: Russian Spacewalk 47

Two cosmonauts will go outside the International Space Station on Wednesday (Nov. 18) to conduct a spacewalk that will initiate preparations for the arrival of a new Russian research module.

Expedition 64 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos, will exit the space station through the Poisk module on the space-facing side of the station's Russian segment for the spacewalk, which is expected to last up to six hours. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will help the cosmonauts suit up and will monitor their progress.

The EVA is expected to begin about 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT).

Ryzhikov, designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1), will wear a Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes. Kud-Sverchkov will wear a spacesuit with blue stripes as EV2. This will be the 47th Russian spacewalk for assembly and maintenance of the station.

During the spacewalk, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov will first conduct leak inspections outside the hatch, as this will be the first spacewalk using the Poisk module for its purpose as an airlock.

Next, they will relocate an antenna from another module, the Pirs docking compartment, to Poisk, the first in a series of tasks over the course of several spacewalks that will prepare Pirs for decommissioning, undocking, and disposal. The Earth-facing Pirs will be replaced by the new Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module, named "Nauka," Russian for "science," which is being prepared for launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The cosmonauts also will replace a fluid flow regulator on the Zarya module, retrieve hardware that measures space debris impacts, and reposition an instrument used to measure the residue from thruster firings.

This will be the first spacewalk for both cosmonauts; the 232nd spacewalk in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades; and the eighth spacewalk of 2020.

posted 11-18-2020 04:10 PM               

Cosmonauts prep for module removal on spacewalk out new airlock

Two cosmonauts opened a new door to the outside of the International Space Station while preparing for the replacement of a two-decade-old Russian docking compartment.

Sergey Ryzhikov, commander of the space station's Expedition 64 crew, and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos, began a 6-hour, 48-minute spacewalk on Wednesday (Nov. 18), by inaugurating the use of the Poisk module as an airlock. Previously, Poisk (Russian for "Search") — also referred to as the Mini Research Module-2 or MRM-2 — had only been used as a port for crewed Soyuz and Progress cargo spacecraft to dock at the space station.