ISS Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Oleg Novitsky and Pytor Dubrov exited the International Space Station for Russian EVA-49 on Friday, the first in a series of up to 11 spacewalks planned to fully integrate the new Russian Nauka module onto the ISS.<\/p>\n
Novitsky and Dubrov donned their Russian Orlan-MKS model spacesuits and exited from the station\u2019s Poisk airlock module at 14:41 UTC \/ 10:41 EDT on September 3 for an approximately 7-hour spacewalk. Inside the station, they were assisted by NASA astronaut and Expedition 65 Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
EVA-49 \u2014 the 242nd spacewalk in support of construction, outfitting, and maintenance of the ISS, the 12th EVA of the year (10 on ISS and 2 on the Chinese space station), and the 5th for Expedition 65 \u2014 specifically focused on attaching Nauka to the ISS\u2019s power and ethernet systems.<\/p>\n
Following years of delays, Nauka launched and autonomously docked with the ISS at the end of July. Since then, the crew aboard the station and ground crews in Russia have been working to outfit the new module and bring it into operation.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s excursion marked the second EVA for both Novitsky and Dubrov, who spent 7 hours 19 minutes outside the station in June tasked with decommissioning the Russian Pirs docking compartment that was undocked to make way for Nauka. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n