Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov performed a spacewalk on the Russian side of the International Space Station to prepare the outpost for the arrival of a new Russian research module named Nauka, a long-awaited science laboratory.<\/p>\n
The spacewalk began at 15:12 UTC (10:12 EST) on Wednesday, 18 November when the cosmonauts left the ISS via the Poisk module and concluded 6 hours 47 minutes later at 21:59 UTC (16:59 EST). This was the first spacewalk from that module and used a new airlock.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity \u2014 or spacewalk) was the 232nd in support of construction and maintenance of the Station, the 8th on the outpost this year, the first from the Poisk module\u2019s airlock, and the first for both Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov.<\/p>\n
It was also the first in a series of tasks that will prepare for Pirs decommissioning, undocking, and disposal while also attempting to replace a fluid flow regulator on the Zarya module, retrieving hardware that measures space debris impacts, and repositioning an instrument used to measure the residue from thruster firings that are used to change the orientation of the ISS.<\/p>\n
During the spacewalk, the cosmonauts first checked for leaks on the hatch; this was accomplished by first opening and examining the seals on the new airlock after depressurization. The crew then closed the hatch and performed a partial repressurization of the module to ensure a good functionality.<\/p>\n
After that, they depressurized again and exited the Poisk module, beginning the process of decommissioning the Pirs docking compartment. Work outside included the attempted replacement of a flow control regulator panel on the Functional Cargo Block (FGB) module, Zarya, re-routing cables, and removing an experiment.<\/p>\n
The cosmonauts were unable to perform the replacement of the flow control regulator when a bolt would not release on the new regulator\u2019s transfer container.<\/p>\n
The new unit was placed back in the Poisk module\u2019s airlock, and the cosmonauts proceeded to the other tasks. At the end of the spacewalk, the window cleaning activity was deferred to a subsequent spacewalk.<\/p>\n
Spaceflight history books (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n See the sequence of the events scheduled for this spacewalk were described in the below video from NASA:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n