ISS, April 19. /TASS/. Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, who is also a special TASS correspondent, and Denis Matveyev, completed the expedition's first spacewalk. They carried out a number of works to prepare the ERA remote manipulator system for operation. The broadcast was conducted on the website of the Russian space agency (Roscosmos).
"Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveyev completed their spacewalk under the Russian program. The exit hatch of the Poisk module was closed on April 19 at 00:37 Moscow time," the Roscosmos Telegram channel said in a statement.
Artemyev and Matveyev began their outer space activities at 6:01 pm Moscow time on Monday. They spent 6 hours and 37 minutes in outer space.
For Artemyev, who is wearing the Orlan-MKS No. 5 spacesuit with red stripes, it’s the fourth spacewalk in his career. For Matveyev, who is wearing the Orlan-MKS No. 4 spacesuit with blue stripes, it’s the first spacewalk.
All works were carried out on the outer surface of the Nauka multirole laboratory module. In particular, the cosmonauts installed, connected and tested the EMMI control panel for the ERA manipulator on the workstation adapter. The cosmonauts installed three handrails on the ERA and a portable workstation adapter. The ERA manipulator will make it possible to perform a number of experiments without going into outer space.