posted 04-25-2024 08:20 AM               

ISS Expedition 71: Russian Spacewalk 62

Two cosmonauts will conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday (April 25), to complete the deployment of a radar system and install experiments.

Expedition 71 cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will venture outside of the station's Poisk module to finish deploying a synthetic radar communications system on the Nauka module. They will also add equipment and experiments on the exterior of the Poisk module to analyze the level of corrosion on space station surfaces.

The spacewalk is expected to begin at 10:55 a.m. EDT (1455 GMT) and could last up to seven hours.

The spacewalk will be the 270th in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades. It will be the seventh for Kononenko, who will wear the Orlan spacesuit with red stripes and the second for Chub, who will wear the spacesuit with blue stripes.

posted 04-25-2024 02:46 PM               

Cosmonauts complete all tasks on spacewalk

Two Russian cosmonauts completed a spacewalk at the International Space Station, wrapping up all of their tasks with time to spare, including the deployment of a radar that they began last year.

Expedition 71 crewmates Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub successfully unfolded and latched the fourth of four panels for a synthetic radar communications system on the Russian Nauka multipurpose laboratory module (MLM) at 11:44 a.m. EDT (1544 GMT) on Thursday (April 25), 47 minutes after the spacewalk began.

The work was quick but necessary to bring the radar system online. The fourth panel failed to automatically unfold when Kononenko and Chub first installed the unit during their previous spacewalk together on Oct. 25, 2023.

The radar will be used to monitor Earth's environment. It was the first science payload to be mounted on Nauka's after the module's addition to the space station in July 2021.

With that fix done, Kononenko and Chub moved onto other tasks outside the Russian segment of the orbiting laboratory. The two spacewalkers rotated the direction of a plume impingement unit used to measure the output of gasses from the space station's thrusters, swabbed the nearby surfaces for later analysis and returned inside with a biological exposure experiment that will also undergo further study.

Kononenko and Chub also moved and installed a stowage platform for hardware adapters on the Poisk mini-research module that will support spacewalk activities, including the installation of two devices to measure corrosion on the station's exterior, which the two cosmonauts completed as their last task of the day.

Kononenko and Chub reentered and closed the hatch to the airlock on the Poisk module at 3:33 p.m. EDT (1933 GMT), marking an official end to their spacewalk after 4 hours and 36 minutes. The excursion had been planned to take upwards of seven hours, but the cosmonauts made quick work of all their activities, running about two hours ahead of schedule.

The spacewalk was the 270th in support of International Space Station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades, totaling 71 days, 11 hours and 25 minutes. It was the seventh outing for Kononenko, who has now logged 44 hours and 30 minutes on extravehicular activities (EVAs) spanning three decades.

Chub completed his second spacewalk, having now spent 12 hours and 17 minutes outside of the International Space Station.