Two Russian spacewalks planned aboard space station

On Aug. 16 and 22, Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin will install equipment for the arrival of a new Russian module and begin preparations for the installation later this year of an optical telescope on the International Space Station.

The two cosmonauts will venture outside the ISS at about 10:40 a.m. EDT on Aug. 16 for a spacewalk scheduled to last about 6.5 hours. They plan to continue routing power and Ethernet cables for the future arrival of the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module, which will be launched aboard a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They also will install on the Poisk module a panel of experiments designed to collect data on the effects of the microgravity environment in low-Earth orbit.

The Aug. 22 spacewalk also is scheduled to begin at about 7:40 a.m. Yurchikhin and Misurkin will remove a space laser communications system from the hull of the Zvezda service module and install a pointing platform on which a small optical telescope will be installed on a future Russian spacewalk.

The spacewalks will be the 172nd and 173rd in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the seventh and eighth of Yurchikhin's career and the second and third for Misurkin. Yurchikhin will wear a Russian Orlan suit bearing red stripes, and Misurkin will wear a suit with blue stripes. Misurkin's suit also will be equipped with a U.S. helmet camera to provide close up views of the work he will be performing outside the station.

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