Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Sergey Prokopyev has walked in space aboard the International space station (ISS). This is the third spacewalk this year according to the Russian program. Before the astronauts have an important task – to open protivometeoritnoy protection of spacecraft “Union MS-09” and inspecting the holes in his living compartment from the outside.
As reported by TASS, citing a representative of the mission control Center, working in the open space should be approximately 6 hours 31 minutes.
“The exit hatch docking compartment “Pirs” was opened. The duration of the work of astronauts in outer space should be approximately 6 hours 31 minutes”, — stated in the message.
The main task is the inspection hole on the outer surface of the orbital module of the spacecraft “Soyuz MS-09” with the opening of the insulation panels and meteoroid bumper in the area specified by the crew of space leaks. Such operation will be performed for the first time in the history of space exploration.
The astronauts will reveal the insulation and meteor protection, will examine and photograph the hole in the living compartment. Also they will take scrapings from the surface of the hole, which will be sent along with the panel micrometeorite protection on the Ground of 20 December on the same ship “Soyuz MS-09”.
If time allows, the astronauts will perform on Board the ISS two more research tasks. Kononenko and Prokopiev have to dismantle the equipment of the experiment, “Endurance”, which studied the effect of space flight conditions on certain materials. The second task was to dismantle with the Poisk module of the device, which was placed on the external surface of the ISS for research in terms of the hard cosmic radiation.
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