Oleg Kononenko and Alexey Ovchinin have completed their spacewalk, titled VKD-46 on Wednesday. The duo installed handrails on the Russian segment, retrieved science experiments from the Poisk module and conduct maintenance work \u2013 including the jettison of four payloads. They opened the EVA with a tribute to the first man to walk in space, Alexei Leonov, who celebrates his 85th birthday on Thursday.<\/p>\n
As per usual, Russian spacewalks are often less to do with crucial repairs to the orbital outpost and more related to minor housekeeping and experiment retrievals \u2013 along with the trademark of a Russian EVA with the \u201cthrowing overboard\u201d \u2013 or jettisoning \u2013 old hardware and towels.<\/p>\n
Expedition 59 Commander Kononenko and Flight Engineer Ovchinin opened the hatch to the Pirs docking compartment airlock and conducted initial safety checks and the preparation of foot restraints before \u2013 after around 30 minutes of trying to get into position \u2013 filming a special message for Leonov.<\/p>\n