Roscosmos astronauts completed a spacewalk on October 25, completing important tasks including radiator inspection of the "Science" experimental module and the release of nanosatellites. Despite problems with a coolant leak and partial deployment of the solar sail, the mission ended successfully.
Roscosmos astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub ended their spacewalk at 9:30 pm Eastern Time on October 25, which lasted 7 hours and 41 minutes.
During the spacewalk, Kononenko and Chubb inspected and photographed the external backup radiator on the Nauka Multipurpose Experiment Module and isolated the radiator from the Science module's cooling system. During the radiator inspection, some coolant was released from the leak. This makes it necessary for astronauts to wipe down their spacesuits before they can continue working.
The two astronauts also released a nanosatellite to test solar sail technology; however, the nanosatellite's solar sail failed to deploy. The astronauts also installed a synthetic radar communications system. One of the four panels of the radar system failed to fully deploy during the spacewalk, and that work will be postponed until a later date.
After the spacewalk, before re-entering the airlock of Search, the two spacewalking cosmonauts inspected Roscosmos' Orlan spacesuits and tools used during the spacewalk as usual, looking for traces of coolant and wiping off any coolant. Astronauts also wipe down their suits and tools after repressurization as usual to further reduce trace contaminants in the space station environment. Later, additional filtration devices will be used inside the space station to quickly remove remaining pollutants from the air.
On December 11, 2018, Roscosmos spacewalker Oleg Kononenko (wearing a red-striped spacesuit) was tethered to the Strela boom during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station, about 250 miles above Earth. Image source: NASA
This was Kononenko's sixth spacewalk in his career and Chubb's first. This is the 268th spacewalk to assemble, maintain and upgrade the space station.
Next up, NASA astronauts Loral O'Hara and Jasmin Moghbeli will perform a spacewalk on Monday, October 30. The spacewalk will be broadcast live starting at 6:30 a.m. on NASA TV, the NASA app and the NASA website. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 8:05 a.m. and last approximately six and a half hours.
On America's 89th spacewalk, O'Hara and Mogbeli will exit the space station's exploration airlock to complete the work of removing a failed electronics box from a communications antenna mount and replace one of the 12 spindle bearing assemblies in the port side truss Sun Alpha swivel joint. This will be the first spacewalk for two astronauts.