CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Two cosmonauts huffed and puffed their way through a six-hour spacewalk at the International Space Station Monday, working up a healthy appetite as they set up science experiments outside the outpost.
Laboring side by side on the outer hull of the stations crew quarters, Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin mounted science packages and two Eastman Kodak Co. placards while U.S. astronaut Frank Culbertson looked on from inside the complex.
"Mikhail, what do you want for dinner?" Culbertson asked his cosmonaut colleague about halfway through an arduous workday.
"Let me think about it," Turin replied before adding: "Maybe tuna family size."
With the 17-story station circling some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the southern tip of South America, Dezhurov and Turin opened a hatch on the outposts newly arrived Russian airlock at 5:17 a.m. EDT (0917 GMT) and then headed outside the international complex.
"Ok, lets go," Dezhurov said.
Added Turin: "Lets do it."
The prime job at hand: Setting up three suitcase-sized Japanese science experiments on the hull of the Russian-built Zvezda module, which doubles as crew quarters and a command and control center for the Russian segment of the outpost.
Once mounted, the cosmonauts opened the cases, which contain gels and foams designed to capture tiny pieces of space debris and micrometeoroids.
Also housed within the packages: Dozens of samples of paints, lubricants, insulation and other materials being tested for possible use on future spacecraft.
Launched to the station as part of a March 1999 agreement between the Russian and Japanese space agencies, the experiment packages were designed and developed as a cost of $1 million USD (120 million yen).
The cases will remain outside the Zvezda module for one, two and three years, respectively, before they are hauled back to Earth aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Data from the experiments will be used to select materials for similar research packages that will be placed outside the Japanese Kibo science laboratory after the facility is delivered to the station in 2004 or 2005.
Grunts, groans and labored breathing could be heard at times on space-to-ground radio loops as the pair carried out their chores, which included the mounting of a Russian experiment designed to measure toxic rocket fuel contamination from station thruster firings.
Small jet thrusters on the Zvezda module periodically are used to refine the stations orbit, and exhaust from those firings came leave contaminants on the hull of the outpost. So the so-called Kromka device was mounted near a set of thrusters on the port side of the module.
Specialists at Russias Mission Control Center outside Moscow told Dezhurov and Turin that they were working in uncharted territory that no spacewalker to date had toiled on that part of the outpost.
"Youre right. We cannot see any footprints here or any handprints here," one of the cosmonauts joked.
The five-hour, 52-minute sortie came to a close after Dezhurov and Turin retrieved two Russian flag placards that had been attached to the Zvezda module to test a new paint being developed for use in the harsh space environment.
The placards were replaced with two Kodak signs that were launched to the station as part of a July 2000 agreement between the U.S. imaging company, the Russian Space Agency and RSC-Energia, among others.
The deal calls for the Russians to deliver, install, manage and operate cameras inside and outside the Zvezda crew quarters. Still and video images then will be published on a yet-to-be-launched web site dubbed EyeOnSpace.com.
The idea is to document the assembly of the station as well as operations on the outpost once construction of the complex is completed around 2006 or 2007.
Mondays spacewalk was the second of three planned at the station by Dezhurov, Turin and Culbertson, who were launched to the outpost in August.
The third sortie which will be carried out by Culbertson and Dezhurov will involve finishing up outfitting chores outside the stations new Russian airlock, which was launched to the outpost Sept. 16.
First up, though: A weeklong visit by two Russian cosmonauts and a French astronaut.
Victor Afanasyev, Konstantin Kozeev and Claudie Haignere are scheduled to launch Sunday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and then arrive at the station two days later.
The trio will deliver a new Soyuz lifeboat to the outpost and then return to Earth Oct. 30 in the Soyuz craft now parked at the station.
NASAs shuttle Endeavour, meanwhile, remains scheduled for launch Nov. 29 on a mission to ferry a fourth full-time crew to the station and then fly back Dec. 10 with Culbertson and his colleagues.
Replacing the Expedition Three crew: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Onufrienko and U.S. astronauts Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz, who will remain on the station until early May 2002.
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