ISS crew begins spacewalk, station unmanned

Expedition 11 Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer John Phillips began a spacewalk this afternoon to remove, replace and photograph experiments and relocate equipment on the International Space Station.

Image: NASA Science Officer John Phillips and Commander Sergei Krikalev work outside the Zvezda Service Module. Credit: NASA

Wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits, both with red stripes, the two opened the Pirs docking compartment airlock hatch at 3:02 p.m. EDT to begin the six-hour spacewalk. It is the eighth spacewalk for Krikalev, designated EV1, and the first for Phillips, EV2.

The first task is to remove a Russian Biorisk experiment container housing bacteria from the outside of Pirs.

Next they will remove an MPAC and SEED panel from the large-diameter aft section of the Zvezda Service Module. MPAC is a micrometeoroid and orbital debris collector. SEED is a materials exposure array.

Crewmembers then will move to the Matroska experiment, a torso-like container with radiation dosimeters in human-tissue-equivalent material. They will remove it and later, with the MPAC and SEED panel bring it back inside the Station.

Krikalev and Phillips will install a television camera on Zvezda, then photograph and check a Korma contamination exposure experiment tablet on a handrail. Once that is complete, they will remove an SKK materials exposure experiment container and replace it with a similar unit.

Their final task is to remove from the Zarya module a grapple fixture for a Strela crane and relocate it on Pressurized Mating Adaptor No. 3, attached to the Station's unity node.

Krikalev and Phillips are scheduled to return to Pirs to wrap up their spacewalk at about 9 p.m. EDT.

Source: NASA