Post date: Dec 27, 2013 4:52:6 PM
Russian cosmonauts, Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy, perform a spacewalk to install photographic and scientific equipment on the hull of theInternational Space Station.
IN SPACE (DECEMBER 27, 2013) (NASA TV) - Two Russian cosmonauts stepped out of the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday (December 27) to install photographic and scientific equipment on the orbitng outpost's Zvezda service module.
Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Serhey Ryazanskiy opened the hatch to the Pirs docking compartment at 0800est (1300gmt) to begin the spacewalk which is expected to be completed within seven hours.The two cosmonauts will install a pair of high-fidelity cameras on the Russian segment of the space station.
Friday's excursion is part of a commercial endeavor between the Russian Federal Space Agency and a Canadian firm, UrtheCast, designed to downlink Earth observation imagery to enable viewers from the ground to access images of the Earth taken from the space station.
This is the third spacewalk in less than a week and the final one for the year for the six-member crew aboard the ISS.
The first two spacewalks were conducted by U.S. astronauts Rick Mastracchio andMichael Hopkins to fix the outpost's cooling system.