MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, who is also a TASS special correspondent aboard the International Space Station (ISS), have finished their second spacewalk in 2023, according to the broadcast on the Russian state-run space corporation Roscosmos’s website.
The cosmonauts began their spacewalk at 11:01 p.m. Moscow time on Wednesday and spent seven hours and ten minutes outside the International Space Station (ISS). The main objective of their extravehicular activities was to transfer an airlock from the Rassvet module to the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module. It was done 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 instructions from the Earth, Fedyaev switched the ERA robotic arm into another mode and Prokopyev and Petelin could adjust the airlock’s position to take it closer to the Nauka module. The airlock was finally connected to the module.
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.
During the spacewalk, the cosmonauts has several breaks to rest and recover, since much of the work involved fine manual skills.
When the ISS was flying over the Middle East, indistinct speech of a local resident was heard on the frequency used to speak with the Earth. "They are calling the sultan," Prokopyev said jokingly.
The cosmonauts were also tasked to throw away into the outer space a pack with garbage accumulated during the recent spacewalks. Prokopyev thrusted the garbage from the station in a direction and with a speed designated from the Earth so that it’s trajectory would not intersect with that of the ISS. The waste is expected to burn in the atmosphere soon.
Before getting back inside the ISS, the cosmonauts took inventory of the tools and checked their spacesuits. "Is it sunburnt?" Prokopyev asked Petelin jestingly when the latter was examining his back.
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.