ISS, April 25. /TASS/. Roscosmos cosmonauts trained at the weekend aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to practice interaction before a scheduled spacewalk to integrate the ERA robotic arm, TASS special correspondent, cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev reported on Monday.

The training involved Artemyev and cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov who will operate the ERA (European Robotic Arm) manipulator from the orbital outpost during the spacewalk.

Russian cosmonauts Artemyev and Denis Matveyev working aboard the International Space Station will embark on their second spacewalk as part of their current space mission on April 28 and spend more than six hours and a half during work outside the orbital outpost.

The extravehicular activity for Artemyev and his teammate Matveyev will begin at 17:25 Moscow time and last about 6 hours and 45 minutes. The program of the spacewalk will be specified and the time may be altered, Artemyev said earlier.

Artemyev will conduct the fifth spacewalk in his career as a cosmonaut while Matveyev will carry out extravehicular activity for the second time. Before that, the cosmonauts made a spacewalk on April 18 to start preparing the ERA robotic arm for operation. Artemyev will work in Orlan-ISS Spacesuit No. 5 with red stripes while Matveyev will conduct extravehicular activity wearing Orlan-ISS Spacesuit No. 4 with blue stripes.

On November 17, 2021, Russia’s world-renowned TASS news agency and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos signed a memorandum of cooperation, under which a TASS news office was established aboard the ISS. Presently, cosmonaut Artemyev is heading the outer space-based branch. Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin was the first TASS special reporter in space. His flight lasted 12 days.