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16.08.2013
MOSCOW, August 16 (RIA Novosti) – Two Russian crew members on board the International Space Station (ISS) will carry out a spacewalk on Friday to install equipment for the arrival of a new Russian module, Russia’s Mission Control Center said.
Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin are expected to open the Pirs airlock hatches at 06.40 pm Moscow time [14:40 GMT] and will return to the ISS at 01:19 am Moscow time on August 17 [21:19 GMT Friday], a Mission Control spokesman said Thursday.
The two cosmonauts will continue routing power and Ethernet cables for the future arrival of the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), which will be launched aboard a Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan later this year.
They will also install a new panel of Vynoslovost (Endurance) experiments designed to collect data on the effects of the microgravity environment in low-Earth orbit.
The six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk will be the seventh in Yurchikhin’s career and the second for Misurkin. Both cosmonauts conducted a similar spacewalk on June 24.
The spacewalk on Friday will be the 172nd in support of assembly and maintenance performed on the $100-billion orbiting laboratory built by 15 countries.
Quelle: RIANOVOSTI
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Clad in Russian Orlan spacesuits, Expedition 36 Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin opened the hatch to the Pirs docking compartment to begin their spacewalk at 10:39 a.m. EDT. The duo will spend about 6.5 hours rigging cables for the future arrival of a Russian laboratory module and installing an experiment panel.
The cosmonauts will first set up a Strela cargo boom on the Poisk mini-research module so Misurkin can maneuver Yurchikhin with cables to the Zarya module near the Unity node. Yurchikhin will then begin rerouting a cable connector and installing cables on Zarya.
While Yurchikhin is working on Zarya, Misurkin will be installing an experiment panel on Poisk. The experiment, named Vinoslivost, exposes materials to the space environment so scientists can study the changes in their properties. He will then install two connector patch panels and gap spanners on Poisk.
After completing the Poisk work Misurkin will join Yurchikhin and assist him with the Ethernet cable installation work on the Zarya cargo module. The duo will go back and forth between Zarya and Poisk routing and installing the cable at various points and securing the cable’s slack.
Once the cable installation is complete the spacewalkers will translate to Pirs and conduct an inventory of their spacewalk tools. The duo will then reenter Pirs and close its hatch officially ending Russian EVA 34. If Yurchikhin and Misurkin are ahead of their timeline they may be able to reposition and stow the Strela cargo boom.
The cable work outside the station’s Russian segment prepares the orbital laboratory for the arrival of the “Nauka” Multipurpose Laboratory Module. The “Nauka” is planned for a launch atop a Russian Proton rocket to replace Pirs.
For the duration of the spacewalk, station Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy will be isolated to the Poisk module and their Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft while Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency will be free to move about the U.S. segment of the complex.
The spacewalk is the 172nd in support of station assembly and maintenance, the seventh in Yurchikhin’s career and the second for Misurkin. The two will venture outside Pirs again on Aug. 22 to replace a laser communications experiment with a platform upon which a small optical telescope will be mounted during a future spacewalk.
Quelle: NASA
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Frams: NASA-TV-LIVE von Spacewalk
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Update: 18.08.2013
Cosmonauts return to airlock to conclude marathon spacewalk
Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin returned to the safety of the International Space Station's Pirs airlock compartment Friday after a trouble-free spacewalk, setting a new Russian endurance record with a seven-hour 29-minute excursion.The cosmonauts ran ahead of schedule most of the day, successfully unreeling and routing two long power lines and an ethernet cable along the outside of the Zarya storage module that will be connected to the new Nauka laboratory after its arrival next year.
Misurkin also mounted a space exposure experiment pallet on a handrail outside the upper Poisk module.The cosmonauts extended a telescoping space crane early on to help move large cable reels from Pirs to Zarya. They originally planned to leave the Strela 1 boom extended, but flight controllers opted to lengthen the spacewalk to give the cosmonauts time to retract it.
The spacewalk began at 10:36 a.m. (GMT-4; time revised by Russian mission control) and ended at 6:05 p.m. when the Pirs airlock hatch was closed.
The seven-hour 29-minute duration set a new Russian spacewalk record, eclipsing the old mark of seven hours and 16 minutes set by two cosmonauts outside the Mir space station in 1990. Two NASA astronauts hold the record for longest spacewalk ever conducted, a marathon eight-hour 56-minute excursion in 2001.
Today's EVA was the 172nd devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the sixth so far this year, the seventh for Yurchikhin and the second for Misurkin. Today's EVA pushed Yurchikhin's total time outside to 45 hours and 55 minutes, moving him up to 12th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers.
As it now stands, 112 astronauts and cosmonauts representing nine nations have logged 1,082 hours and 51 minutes of ISS EVA time -- 45.1 days -- building and servicing the space station.
The next major assembly task will be attachment of the Nauka -- "science" -- multi-purpose laboratory module.
The Russians originally planned to launch the MLM aboard a Proton rocket at the end of the year, but officials say the flight is expected to slip several months into the spring of 2014.
During the past several spacewalks, astronauts and cosmonauts have been installing cables and attachment fittings needed to route power and data to and from the new module, which will replace the Pirs airlock and docking compartment.
The Russians eventually plan to launch a multi-hatch node that will be attached to Nauka's Earth-facing end, providing additional ports and the attachment point for a Russian solar power module that will extend to the right side of the space station.
Yurchikhin and Misurkin plan to venture back outside next Thursday to install a telescope mounting platform and to remove docking components from Pirs.
Quelle: CBS
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Expedition 36 Cosmonauts Break EVA Record
It was a record that hadn’t been challenged since the days of Mir in 1990, but on Friday, Aug. 16, it was smashed by Expedition 36′sRussian flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin: longest Russian extravehicular activity (EVA).
The cosmonauts broke the 23-year-old record with their International Space Station (ISS) EVA, which stood at seven hours and 16 minutes, by 13 minutes. This time stands at stark contrast to the early days of the agency’s EVAs; cosmonaut Alexei Leonov’s historic 1965 spacewalk on Voskhod 2 lasted merely 12 minutes.
Yurchikhin and Misurkin spent these hours rigging cables for a multipurpose laboratory module, “Nauka” (Science), which is scheduled to launch aboard a Russian Proton rocket in December. The spacewalk began at 10:36 a.m. EDT after Russian Orlan suits were donned. After the cosmonauts installed the Strela cargo boom on the Poisk module, Misurkin used the boom to send Yurchikhin and equipment to the Zarya module. Yurchikhin rerouted connectors and installed cable crucial to the installation of the future module, which will replace Pirs.
In the meantime, Misurkin worked on installing an experiment panel on Posik, “Vinoslivost.” This panel will expose different materials to space in order to gauge changes in their properties. Following Misurkin’s activities (he also installed two connector patch panels and gap spanners), he joined his colleague at Zarya, where the two worked together to install lengths of Ethernet cable. The cosmonauts ended their spacewalks at 6:05 p.m. EDT with the closing of the Pirs module’s docking compartment hatch.
This EVA marked the seventh spacewalk for Yurchikhin and the second for Misurkin. The cosmonauts will have a chance to add more EVA time to their careers, as they are both scheduled to venture outside of Pirs on August 22 to mount a telescope platform.This EVA comes exactly a month after a harrowing spacewalk for Italian ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano. While he ventured outside of the ISS with NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, he realized his helmet was beginning to fill with water. The EVA was aborted at one hour, 32 minutes. Parmitano’s entry back into the ISS was expedited, and while he ultimately was fine, the scare prompted an investigation by NASA that is still ongoing. Thankfully, today’s EVA seemed to go off without a hitch.
Quelle: NASA