Cosmonauts donned their Orlan spacesuits and ventured outside the International Space Station to begin equipping a European robotic arm mounted on a Russian science module, a collaborative effort that has been unaffected by deteriorating international relations on the ground.
The two spacewalkers proceeded to the side of the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module, where the new arm has been installed since the module's launch in July 2021. The arm will be configured for usage during a series of spacewalks.
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), Expedition 67 flight engineers Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev, both of Russia's federal space corporation Roscosmos, evacuated the station's Poisk module on the station's Russian segment's space-facing side, beginning the 6 hour, 37-minute extravehicular activity (EVA).
The European Robotic Arm (ERA) of the European Space Agency (ESA) will be the first instrument capable of servicing the exterior of the Russian section of the International Space Station once it is configured. On the station's U.S. side, the Canadarm2 and the Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS) The United States Operating Segment (USOS) is unable to reach many of the required places on the Russian segment.
The ERA, like the Canadarm2, was supposed to travel like an inchworm, arranging itself hand-over-hand between predetermined base points. Crew members will be able to control the 37-foot (11.3-meter) robotic arm from both inside and outside the space station.
Their six-month mission will include up to seven spacewalks.
This will be Artemyev's fourth spacewalk and Matveev's first as well. It will also be the station's fourth spacewalk in 2022, and the 249th spacewalk dedicated to maintenance and upgrades.
The next spacewalk in the series will take place on April 28.
And it won't be the last, as NASA says more spacewalks will be needed to finish installing the European robotic arm.
The European Robotic Arm arrived at the International Space Station last year, joining a Canadian-built arm and a Japanese robot arm.
The first of two spacewalks by Russian cosmonauts took place from the International Space Station (ISS). The goal is to turn on a new robotic arm attached to the Nauka module on the International Space Station. The ceremony will be broadcast live on NASA TV, the NASA website, and the NASA mobile app starting at 14 UTC (10 a.m. EDT) on Monday. The spacewalk itself is set to begin at 14:25 UTC (10:25 a.m. EDT) and will take approximately seven hours.
