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Russian cosmonauts begin spacewalk to install spectrometer on Zvezda module

The instrument will be able to monitor 84% of the celestial sphere and help scientists determine the number of supermassive black holes in the Universe

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner (TASS special correspondent) have opened the exit hatch of the International Space Station's Poisk module and started a second extravehicular activity this year, being streamed on the state corporation's website.

During the spacewalk, Russian ISS crew members will mount and connect the SPIN-X1-MVN X-ray spectrometer outside the Zvezda service module. The instrument will be able to monitor 84% of the celestial sphere and help scientists determine the number of supermassive black holes in the Universe.

The cosmonauts will also dismantle research equipment from the Poisk module. Ovchinin will then position himself in the ERA's portable manipulator arm workstation and fling the dismantled items away from the ISS. The garbage will soon burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. The cosmonauts are expected to spend 6 hours and 43 minutes outside the ISS.

This EVA is the first in Vagner career. He is wearing Orlan-ISS spacesuit No. 4 with blue stripes. Alexey Ovchinin, who is wearing Orlan-ISS spacesuit No. 5 with red stripes, is in outer space for a second time (for the first time during the current 72nd long expedition to the orbital outpost). As Vagner reported, before the spacewalk, the cosmonauts had tried on spacesuits and checked their functionality together with onboard equipment.

The previous spacewalk under the Russian program (EVA-62) took place in the evening of April 25: Oleg Kononenko and Nikolay Chub deployed a small-size radar on the surface of the Nauka module, as well as installed equipment for the Kvarts-M and Perspektiva-KM experiments outside the Poisk module. It is noteworthy that the cosmonauts were two hours ahead of the expected deadline to have accomplished all assigned tasks in 4.5 hours.

About the spectrometer

The spectrometer for the experiment All Sky Monitor was delivered to the station on the cargo spacecraft Progress MS-28 in August. In September, the Deputy Director of the Space Research Institute (SRI) under the Russian Academy of Sciences, associate member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Lutovinov told TASS that the device would go operational immediately after installation and perform 15 sky surveys in three years.

Lutovinov noted that the instrument would help scientists determine the number of supermassive black holes in the Universe and their contribution to its history by measuring the cosmic X-ray background - radiation made up of a huge number of distant objects that are almost impossible to view individually.

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