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Russian cosmonauts gearing up for spacewalk in early August

Last time the Russian cosmonauts conducted their spacewalk was on February 2-3

Alexei Ovchinin Artem Korotayev/TASS

Alexei Ovchinin

© Artem Korotayev/TASS

STAR CITY/Moscow Region/, February 20. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Alexei Ovchinin will set out on a spacewalk on August 8.

"The spacewalk is scheduled for the beginning of August, and now the date is August 8," Artemyev said ahead of his training.

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The Russian cosmonauts will head off into space in order to install equipment on the external surface of the International Space Station for the ICARUS experiment on monitoring wild birds.

This will be the most interesting experiment out of more than 50 others, which the Russian crew will carry out during the flight, the cosmonaut said.

Artemyev said he was well-prepared for the spacewalk. "These are routine operations and all cosmonauts can remove and install equipment on the station’s external surface," he said.

On Tuesday, the crews began their exam training during which they will have to solve a number of emergency situations that may occur during the flight, including a fire onboard the spacecraft and decompression.

The crews also gain proficiency in berthing the Soyuz MS in manual mode and also redocking, a routine operation needed to take the spacecraft from one docking station to another.

ISS Expedition 55-56 crew consists of Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronauts Andrew Feustel and Richard Arnold. The backup team includes Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague. They will head to the ISS onboard the Soyuz MS-08 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on March 21.

Last time the Russian cosmonauts conducted their spacewalk was on February 2-3. Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov set a new record for Russian cosmonaut by spending 8 hours and 13 minutes outside the station.

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