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Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov completed a spacewalk to inspect a docking compartment on the International Space Station (ISS) in preparation for the installation of a Russian research module next year.
Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov spent nearly seven hours on the spacewalk on November 18. It was the first for both cosmonauts.
The cosmonauts began the spacewalk around 10:00 (1500 GMT) and re-entered the poisk docking compartment airlock around 17:00 (2200 GMT), NASA said.
Their mission was to inspect Poisk’s airlock for leaks among other activities such as repositioning an antenna cable, recovering hardware that measures the impacts of space debris, and repositioning a used instrument. to measure residuals from thruster shots.
They had to give up one of their duties due to a stubborn bolt that prevented them from replacing a fluid flow regulator in Russia’s oldest compartment on the ISS, Zarya.
NASA said the old regulator was still working and the swap would be postponed to a later spacewalk.
The mission included preparations for the installation of the Nauka research module, which will be delivered next year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, for rent in Russia, about a decade late due to a series of repairs.
The 22-ton laboratory, which spans 13 meters, is so large that it will be launched by a powerful Proton rocket. Once on the ISS, it will also act as an inner tube and docking port.
The transfer of the antenna cable was the first step in decommissioning the old Russian Pirs spacewalk compartment to make room for the new laboratory.
The Pirs module will be removed and disposed of next year. Plans call for a cargo ship to be attached to it and used to guide it to a fiery re-entry.
Based on reports from AP and dpa
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