A Russian astronaut riding the end of a robotic arm during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station today (December 19) briefly jettisoned the used equipment he and a fellow astronaut collected during the spacewalk.
Today, Expedition 72 flight engineer Alexey Ovchinin put his feet on the ground near the end of his and Ivan Vagner’s seven-hour extravehicular activity (EVA). Fixed at one end of the European Robotic Arm (ERA). academician Russian space agency Astronaut Alexsandr Gorbunov controls the movement of the 37-foot-long (11.3-meter) arm inside the space station.
At the predetermined location, Ovchinin threw a bundle of no longer needed electrical connectors, covers, and an experimental boom overboard so that it would no longer come into contact with the orbiting laboratory and then burst into flames upon reentry. . Earth’s atmosphere.
“Here it is, and it’s floating away,” Ovchinin said, pushing the package toward the back end of the space station. “It all went away nicely.”
Related: Spacewalks: how they work and major milestones
Ovchinin and Wagner began spacewalk At 10:36 a.m. EDT (1536 GMT), they opened the airlock door of the Poisk small research module. After exiting the space station and picking up the tools needed for the trip, the two astronauts headed to the Zvezda service module, where they installed the All-Sky Monitor, an X-ray spectrometer.
Using the All-Sky Monitor, “scientists will conduct an almost complete (84%) regular observation of the celestial sphere in the X-ray wavelength range every 72 days for three years (a total of 15 such observations are planned),” according to Roscosmos a statement.
From there, Ovchinin and Wagner worked on replacing the four electrical connector strips on the Zvezda’s exterior with new replacement parts. The old panels were part of a package that Ovchinin later disposed of during a spacewalk.
The astronauts also collected experiments exposing materials (“test and endurance”) and biological samples (“controls”) to assess their responses to the space environment. Ovchinin and Wagner took the experimental board back to the space station and took a plane back to Earth Soyuz spacecraft for further field research.
On the last mission, the spacewalker threw away the towel he used to wipe his body. space suitPut on gloves before re-entering the airlock.
The spacewalkers abandoned the relocation of the European robotic arm’s external control panel due to time constraints. The move would clear the way for future extravehicular activities, but is otherwise unimportant to the station’s operations.
Thursday’s spacewalk ended at 5:53 pm (2253 GMT), 7 hours and 17 minutes after it started. This is the 272nd EVA, supporting assembly, maintenance and upgrades international space station Since 1998.
It was the first spacewalk during Expedition 72 and the third spacewalk this year on the International Space Station (an American spacewalk was shortened to 31 minutes due to a water leak while two astronauts were still on Quest’s gas inside the lock chamber). Five more spacewalks in 2024, four outside China Tiangong Space Station By the Shenzhou 17th, 17th, 18th, 19th units and World’s first commercial spacewalk,Depend on polar dawn The crew outside the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
This is Ovkinin’s second EVA and Wagner’s first. Ovchinin previously performed a spacewalk of 6 hours and 1 minute in 2019, and his total time working in the vacuum of space is now 13 hours and 18 minutes.