Spacewalk

Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Yuri Malenchenko have returned to the International Space Station (ISS) after successfully performing a four hour and 45 minute long spacewalk.

The spacewalk was performed to deploy and recover various experiment packages on the Zvezda and Poisk modules. They also installed gap spanners devices on the hull of the ISS to ease the crew member’s movement during future spacewalks.

After putting on their Russian Orlan spacesuits, both veteran cosmonauts started their walk from the Russian section’s Pirs docking slot.

During the 193rd spacewalk of the station, the cosmonauts installed the Vinoslivost experiment, which will test the effects of the harsh space environment on various structural material samples.

Volkov and Malenchenko, who are the members of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), also carried out the Restavratsiya experiment, which could be used to glue special coatings to external surfaces of the ISS’s Russian part.

"The spacewalk was performed to deploy and recover various experiment packages on the Zvezda and Poisk modules."

In addition, the cosmonauts retrieved the Expose-R experiment, a set of biological and biochemical samples that were placed in the harsh space environment.

Part of the European Space Agency programme, Expose examines astrobiology, the study of origins, evolution and distribution of life in the universe.

During the walk, Volkov dropped a flash drive, which contained messages and video from last year’s 70th anniversary of Victory Day, in a direction from where the drive would not be able to hit the station in the future.

The walk was the sixth spacewalk for Malenchenko and the fourth spacewalk for Volkov.

It was the second spacewalk of the year. During this year’s first spacewalk, a water leak found on the helmet of one of the two spacewalkers forced the walk to be cut short, reports ABC.


Image: Yuri Malenchenko and Sergey Volkov work outside the Pirs docking compartment on gear installation and science experiments. Photo: credit of Nasa.