ISS, November 6. /TASS/. During their second spacewalk of the year, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky experienced noticeably warmer conditions compared to their previous extravehicular activity (EVA). According to Zubritsky, who is also TASS special correspondent on the International Space Station, this difference was largely due to the absence of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) manipulator, which allowed the pair to move around more actively.
"The suit’s thermal control system can only cool the astronaut to a certain degree, but the body still generates heat," Zubritsky explained. "During the first spacewalk, when we spent more time operating the ERA, it sometimes felt cool on the dark side of the orbit. This time, we were constantly working or moving, so the temperature felt comfortable throughout the entire EVA."
Zubritsky also shared some vivid sensory impressions from the spacewalk. On the dark side of the orbit, the handrails of the station felt icy through his gloves, while on the sunlit side, they became noticeably warm.
"If you hold your glove in the sunlight for a long time, it feels like placing your hand near a fireplace," he said. "But if you move it into the shade - even the shadow of your other hand - it immediately begins to cool down," the cosmonaut noted.
He added that the second EVA felt less stressful than the first, as procedures had become more familiar and the station no longer seemed as alien when viewed from outside.
"We still understood the importance of the tasks at hand," Zubritsky noted. "Installing new scientific equipment is a demanding operation," he added.
On October 28, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky spent nearly seven hours outside the ISS during their second spacewalk of 2025.