MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent) and Nikolay Chub closed the hatch of the Poisk module of the International Space Station (ISS), completing their first spacewalk in 2024, according to a live broadcast by Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos.
The first ISS spacewalk in 2024 began at 5:57 p.m. Moscow time (2:57 p.m. GMT) and was scheduled to take six hours and 36 minutes.
The cosmonauts fulfilled their tasks way faster than planned, spending four hours and 36 minutes in space.
Russian ISS crew members installed hardware for the Kvartz-M and Perspektiva-KM research experiments outside the Poisk module and completed the deployment of a radar on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module (MLM), which could not be fully installed during the previous EVA in October. They also removed the Biorisk-MSN science equipment container from the Poisk module, deployed the pressure and deposition control unit on the same module, and took wipe samples from the surface of the Nauka MLM as part of the Test experiment.
According to Dmitry Akhmerov, a lead engineer of the Extravehicular Activities Department of Russia’s state-run rocket and space corporation RSC Energia, the cosmonauts were completing their tasks way ahead of the schedule.
During the live broadcast, the official did not share the medical team’s evaluations of Kononenko and Chub’s general health condition during the spacewalk, but said that judging by the quality and speed of their work, the crew was feeling well. "Five out of five," he said.
The spacewalk was a seventh in the career of Kononenko, who was wearing Orlan-MKS spacesuit No. 5 with red stripes, and a second for Chub, wearing Orlan-MKS spacesuit No. 4 with blue stripes.