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ISS commander, flight engineer complete EVA, return to station

Despite the almost hour delay at the beginning of the work, Padalka and Malenchenko coped with the main tasks 30 minutes ahead of schedule

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

KOROLEV (Moscow Region), August 21 (Itar-Tass) — Commander of Expedition 32 to the International Space Station (ISS) Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko have fulfilled the main tasks of this year’s second spacewalk under the Russian ISS program and returned to the station.

The Mission Control Centre (MCC) outside Moscow told Itar-Tass that “at 01:28, Moscow time, they returned to the station and closed the hatches.” The cosmonauts spent in outer space more than five hours. The spacewalk started at 19:37, Moscow time, Monday, instead of the scheduled 18:30.

Despite the almost hour delay at the beginning of the work, Padalka and Malenchenko coped with the main tasks 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

The other crewmembers of the ISS Expedition 32 - Russian cosmonaut Sergei Revin, NASA astronauts Joseph Acaba, Sunita Williams and astronaut of the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) Akihiko Hoshide – are waiting for them in the Poisk module (MIM-2) and in the US segment of the station.

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