Veteran Russian Cosmonauts Set for Spacewalk on NASA TV

NASA Television will broadcast live coverage of a six-hour spacewalk by two Russian crew members aboard the International Space Station beginning at 9:45 a.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 10.

Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will don their spacesuits and exit the station's Pirs airlock at 10:14 a.m. Their objectives are to rig new equipment on the Russian segment of the station and conduct a detailed photographic inspection of the exterior of the orbiting outpost.

Padalka and Kornienko will install devices called gap spanners on the hull of the station. These devices will facilitate the movement of crew members on future spacewalks. They also will clean residue off of the windows of the Zvezda Service Module, install fasteners on communications antennas, replace an aging antenna used for the rendezvous and docking of visiting vehicles at Russian docking ports, and photograph a variety of locations and hardware on Zvezda and nearby modules.

The pair also will retrieve an experiment first deployed in 2013, the Obstanovka Experiment, which studies the interaction between the space station and the space plasma environment in low-Earth orbit, as it can affect power supply systems and other external surfaces.

The spacewalk will be the 188th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, and the 10th spacewalk for Padalka, who has spent more time in space than any other human. It will be the second spacewalk for Kornienko, who is in the fifth month of a one-year mission on the complex.

Padalka will be designated extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1) and Kornienko will be extravehicular crew member 2 (EV2). Both will wear Russian Orlan spacesuits bearing blue stripes.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the International Space Station and its crew, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

SOURCE NASA

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