Science & Technology

ISS cosmonauts exit platform to tune up Nauka module

Moscow, Sep 3 (EFE).- Cosmonauts from the International Space Station (ISS) Oleg Novitski and Piotr Dubrov exited the orbital platform Friday for a first of 11 expeditions planned to tune up the new scientific module Nauka.

The spacewalk, called EVA 49, will last seven hours and five minutes, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

Novitski and Dubrov, astronauts of mission 65 in the ISS, opened the gate of the Russian module Poisk at 2:41pm UTC, and they stepped into space 10 minutes later, as seen in a Rocosmos video stream.

This was the 242nd spacewalk since the ISS was launched, and the 10th spacewalk of the year.

“Us cosmonauts like to go out into space,” said Novitski in a video published shortly before the expedition.

The Nauka module, some 20.3 tonnes, was Russia’s first module sent to the ISS since 2010 and is the largest space laboratory ever sent to space.

The module is 13 meters long, with 4.2 meters of diameter in its widest part and a pressurized volume of 70 cubic meters.

It can generate oxygen for up to six people and recycles urine to obtain drinking water.

Their second spacewalk to abilitate the Nauka module, out of 11 needed, will take place on September 9 and is expected to last five hours. EFE

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