posted 12-19-2024 09:10 AM               

ISS Expedition 72: Russian Spacewalk 63

Two cosmonauts will conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday (Dec. 19), to install an experiment package and new electrical connectors, as well dispose spent hardware.

Expedition 72 cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner will venture outside of the station's Poisk module to mount an experiment designed to monitor celestial x-ray sources. They will also position new patch panels and remove several experiments and jettison them overboard.

The two cosmonauts also will relocate a control panel for the European robotic arm, which is attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexsandr Gorbunov will operate the arm during the spacewalk from inside the station.

The spacewalk is expected to begin at 10:10 a.m. EST (1555 GMT) and could last up to six and a half hours.

The spacewalk will be the 272nd in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades. It will be the second for Ovchinin, who will wear the Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, and the first for Vagner, who will wear the spacesuit with blue stripes.

posted 12-19-2024 05:26 PM               

Cosmonauts complete Russian spacewalk 63

A Russian cosmonaut took a short ride at the end of a robotic arm to jettison spent equipment that he and a crewmate collected during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

Expedition 72 flight engineer Alexey Ovchinin secured his feet at one end of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) towards the end of his and Ivan Vagner’s seven-hour extravehicular activity (EVA) on Thursday (Dec. 19). Fellow Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexsandr Gorbunov controlled the 37-foot-long (11.3 meters) arm’s movement from inside the space station.

At the desired point, Ovchinin tossed the bundle of no longer needed electrical connectors, covers and an experiment boom overboard such that it would no longer come in contact with the orbiting laboratory before burning up while reentering Earth’s atmosphere.

Ovchinin and Vagner began the spacewalk at 10:36 a.m. EST (1536 GMT) as they opened the hatch to the airlock on the Poisk mini-research module. Once outside the station and having picked up the tools they needed for the excursion, the two cosmonauts proceeded to the Zvezda service module, where they installed the “All-Sky Monitor,” an X-ray spectrometer.

Using the All-Sky Monitor “scientists will conduct a periodic, almost full (84 percent) observation of the celestial sphere within the X-ray wavelength range every 72 days over three years (in all, 15 such observations are being planned),” according to a Roscosmos statement.

From there, Ovchinin and Vagner worked on swapping out four electrical connector patch panels on the outside of Zvezda with new replacements. The old panels were part of the bundle that Ovchinin disposed of later in the spacewalk.

The cosmonauts also collected experiments that exposed materials (“Test and Endurance”) and biological samples (“Control”) to assess their reaction to the space environment. Ovchinin and Vagner brought the experiment panels back inside the station to be returned to Earth on a Soyuz spacecraft for further study on the ground.

Due to time constraints, the spacewalkers forewent the relocation of an exterior control panel for the European Robotic Arm. The move would have cleared a translation path for future EVAs but otherwise was not critical to station operations.

Thursday's spacewalk ended at 5:53 p.m. (2253 GMT), 7 hours and 17 minutes after it began.