Unpacking and Changing Plates: A Day in Space – Video

22:35 02.06.2021(Updated 22:38 02.06.2021) short link

As part of Expedition 65, which continues to fly aboard the International Space Station, the Russian crew conducted a spacewalk to disassemble one of the modules, replace one panel on another and install scientific equipment.

Astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) performed a spacewalk on June 2, the first of the year, as part of the Russian program. They set up the Pirs module to disengage from the International Space Station.

Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov completed a sortie 33 minutes later and remained in space for seven hours and 19 minutes, with the original scheduled duration of six hours and 50 minutes.

The astronauts replaced the interchangeable liquid flow-regulating plate in the Zarya module’s thermoregulation system, the oldest on the International Space Station launched in 1998.

The airtight container with the old board was thrown into space. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the container would completely burn up in the atmosphere over the next two to three days.

This operation has already been carried out twice, but last November the third operation failed due to the inability to open the lid of the container with the new plate.

Technology and Science

The two men also prepared the space station for the dismantling of the Pirs module, which has been docked since 2001, and the arrival of the new Naouka spacecraft in July. They also worked on the Poïsk unit.

They installed equipment there for testing and scientific experiments Vynoslivost aimed at studying the effect of space conditions on microorganisms and some substances.

Seven crew members

This was Russia’s 55th flight from the International Space Station, the first this year and the first for both cosmonauts. Oleg Novitsky will have to make three more outings, and Pyotr Dubrov will double them.

The expedition 65 includes Russians Oleg Novitsky and Peter Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hee, Shane Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide and France’s Thomas Bisquet.