BAIKONUR (Kazakhstan), September 14 Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko said that he and his colleague Nikolai Chub will conduct there is only one spacewalk in 2023, another one has been postponed to next year due to the fact that the necessary equipment was not delivered to the ISS in time.
“This year there will definitely be one, the next three are expected next year,” Kononenko said at the pre-flight press conference.
He clarified that the first exit will take place in October-November.
According to the cosmonaut, it was initially assumed that two exits would take place in 2023 and two more the following year. However, one of them had to be moved due to the fact that the equipment necessary for working in outer space had not yet been delivered to the International Space Station.
The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft is scheduled for September 15. Its crew included Kononenko and Chub, as well as NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara. The Russians will spend a year on the ISS, O'Hare — six months. About 60 scientific experiments are planned for Russians, including seven new ones, and up to four spacewalks.