MOSCOW, August 9Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin will make their sixth spacewalk from the International Space Station on Wednesday and install a portable workplace on the Nauka module, the press service of Roscosmos told reporters.
«Today, participants of the 69th long-term expedition to the International Space Station, cosmonauts of the State Corporation Roscosmos Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, will conduct a spacewalk to ensure the movement of a portable workplace from the Rassvet small research module to the multi-purpose one by the European remote manipulator ERA Science laboratory module, the message says.
It is noted that the cosmonauts will also mount additional screens of micrometeoroid protection on the Rassvet module. With them they will close the places where an additional radiation heat exchanger and an airlock chamber used to stand. In the course of previous exits, Prokopiev and Petelin transferred them to the Science module for future experiments.
Progress of work
It is planned that the astronauts will open the exit hatch of the Poisk module at 17.45 Moscow time. They will first head to the Sunrise to prepare the portable workbench for ERA's robot arm to move. Andrey Fedyaev, the third Russian cosmonaut, will control the manipulator from inside the station.
Prokopiev and Petelin will observe the movement, after which they will cover the empty seats on the Rassvet module with anti-meteoroid protection.
Further, the astronauts overboard will assemble the workplace with its adapter already installed on the Nauka module. In addition, it is planned to check the working capacity of the workplace on the new module. Prokopiev will be the first to «ride» on it. After the trial «trip», the workplace will be stored on the UFP-1 passive fixation device on the Nauka module.
According to experts, the duration of the exit should be 6 hours 45 minutes.
The exit will be the 70th under the Russian program within the framework of the ISS project (the 60th planned) and the fifth in 2023. Prokopyev will have to work outside the station for the eighth time in his career (now he is performing his second flight to the ISS), and Petelin — the sixth.
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