MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, who is also a TASS special correspondent aboard the International Space Station (ISS), have opened the hatch of the Poisk module on the International Space Station (ISS) for exit and begun their second spacewalk in 2023, according to the broadcast on the Russian state-run space corporation Roscosmos’s website.

The main objective of their extravehicular activities will be to transfer an airlock from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module. Prokopyev and Petelin will prepare the airlock for transfer, which will be carried out with the ERA robotic arm under the remote control of cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who will stay aboard the ISS. Prokopyev and Petelin will supervise the operation of the robotic arm, and as soon as the transfer is over, they will dock the airlock to the Nauka module. The spacewalk is scheduled to last six hours and 22 minutes.

The spacewalk was initially scheduled for April 26, but was postponed due to the need for more detailed research into its tasks.

It is Russia’s 67th spacewalk as part of the ISS project, and the second one in 2023. It is fifth for Sergey Prokopyev, who is wearing the Orlan-MKS N. 5 spacesuit with red stripes, and third for Dmitry Petelin, who is wearing the Orlan-MKS N. 4 spacesuit with blue stripes.

The Russian cosmonauts’ first spacewalk in 2023 took place on April 19, when they transferred a thermal control radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multi-purpose research lab. Their extravehicular activity lasted seven hours and 54 minutes.