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Russian Cosmonauts Complete Spacewalk at International Space Station
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
posted: 11:00 am ET
26 August 2002
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A pair of Russian spacewalkers completed a laundry list of jobs outside the International Space Station (ISS) early Monday morning. Expedition Five commander Valery Korzun and flight engineer Sergei Treschev finished everything assigned to them with apparent ease, wrapping up the work ahead of schedule even after starting the planned six-hour spacewalk nearly a half-hour late. Wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits during a spacewalk that was staged from the Pirs docking compartment, Korzun and Treschev had five major tasks on their "to do" list and stepped through everything quickly and without incident. Among the jobs performed: - Installed a frame on some handrails that will serve as a temporary holding place for spare parts known as "orbital replacement units" that may be carried to the station and installed by future spacewalking crews.
- Connected several devices to the station's outer hull that will assist future spacewalkers in routing their tethers so as to keep the lifelines untangled as they are strung over longer portions of the outpost.
- Swapped out a pair science experiments for the Japanese space agency NASDA that measured the number and type of tiny particles that hit the station from time to time, as well exposed a number of materials to the space environment. Japanese engineers hope to use the information collected to design better-protected spaceships.
- Replaced an experiment that measures the amount of residue that has settled on the station's skin from thrusters used to point the outpost.
- Attached a pair of HAM radio antennas to the exterior of the Zvezda service module.
Monday's spacewalk was the fourth venture outside for the veteran flyer Korzun, who made a spacewalk at the ISS on Aug. 16 and two while serving aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1996. He offered advice to Treschev, a rookie who was making his first spacewalk on Monday. While that was going on outside, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was inside the station monitoring the progress of the spacewalk and helping to aim cameras at the activity, which was broadcast live on NASA TV. The start of the spacewalk was delayed because of an air leak in the sealed hatches between the Pirs airlock and the Zvezda service module. The problem was easily corrected but took the crew almost a half-hour to step through the procedures and get ready to go outside. Once Korzun and Treschev got into the swing of things they quickly made up for lost time, prompting Mission Control near Moscow to encourage them to rest each time the station passed over the night side of the planet. Mission managers kept asking how the spacewalkers were feeling and at one point Korzun gave this reply: "We are doing good and we're still alive." With the spacewalks behind them, the crew will settle back into a more-or-less normal routine for a couple of weeks and then will begin preparing for their next major milestone: the visit of shuttle Atlantis in early October. The Expedition Five crew are scheduled to return to Earth aboard shuttle Endeavour during its mission now targeted for early November.
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