NASA will provide coverage of spacewalks Monday, April 18, and Thursday, April 28, as Russian cosmonauts venture outside the International Space Station to activate a new robotic arm attached to the Nauka module.

Coverage for both spacewalks will begin at 10 a.m. EDT each day on NASA Television, the NASA app, and agency’s website. Each spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 10:25 a.m.

Expedition 67 Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev of Roscosmos will conduct Russian spacewalks 52 and 53. They will begin each seven-hour excursion by exiting the space-facing Poisk module of the station’s Russian segment.

During the first spacewalk, the cosmonauts will install and connect a control panel for the European robotic arm, a 37-foot-long manipulator system mounted to the recently arrived Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. They will also remove protective covers from the arm and install handrails on Nauka. The arm will be used to move spacewalkers and payloads around the Russian segment of the station.

On the second spacewalk, the duo will jettison thermal blankets used to protect the arm during its July 2021 launch with Nauka. They will also flex the arm’s joints, release launch restraints, and monitor the arm’s ability to use two grapple fixtures.

Artemyev will wear a Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes. Matveev will wear a spacesuit with blue stripes. This will be the fourth spacewalk in Artemyev’s career, and the first for Matveev. It will be the fourth spacewalk at the station in 2022 and the 249th spacewalk for space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

Additional spacewalks are planned to continue to outfit the European robotic arm and to activate Nauka’s airlock for future spacewalks.

Quelle: NASA