BAIKONUR /Kazakhstan/, September 21. /TASS/. Members of Expedition 68 to the International Space Station (ISS), whose Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is to blast off on September 21, are planning to carry out five spacewalks during their 188-day mission, cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin said on Tuesday.
"Five spacewalks are planned to be held during our spaceflight. The work will be quite intense, because shortly upon our arrival we will start preparing our spacesuits for the first spacewalk," he told an online news conference at TASS.
"Later, spacewalks will be held every two weeks. The bulk of work will be aimed at integrating the multi-function laboratory module (MLM) into the station," the cosmonaut added.
During their spacewalk, cosmonauts will use the ERA robotic arm, to be operated from inside the station by cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
Apart from the main tasks, the crew will run various experiments, launch satellites and perform other tasks related to the station’s equipment.
A Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will blast off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 16:54 on September 21. The spacecraft’s crew will comprise Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio. Their space mission is to last 188 days, until March 28. It will be the first Soyuz flight under the seat swap agreement. The spacecraft will also carry about 120 kilograms of payload.