MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, who is also a TASS special correspondent aboard the International Space Station (ISS), helped transfer an airlock to the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module during their second spacewalk in 2023, according to the broadcast on the Russian state-run space corporation Roscosmos’s website.

The airlock was transferred from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module with the help of the ERA robotic arm under the remote control of cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who stayed aboard the ISS. It took several attempts to attach the airlock due to the matching faults of the docking units. "It [the airlock] is visibly tilted," Petelin described the situation.

Following the recommendations from the Earth, Fedyaev switched the ERA robotic arm into another mode and Prokopyev and Petelin could correct the airlock’s position to take it closer to the Nauka module. Now they are to connect it to the module.

Prokopyev and Peyelin opened the hatch of the ISS Poisk module and began the spacewalk at 11:01 p.m. Moscow time on Wednesday. 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 the fifth one for Sergey Prokopyev, who is wearing the Orlan-MKS N. 5 spacesuit with red stripes, and the third one 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.