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January 14, 2010. S.P.Korolev RSC Energia - MCC-M,
Korolev, Moscow region

In accordance with the mission plan of the International Space Station (ISS), Russian cosmonauts, flight engineers of the 22/23rd Expeditions to ISS, Oleg Kotov and Maxim Suraev performed a scheduled extravehicular activity.

The main purpose of the activity was to lay cables between Poisk and Zvezda modules, to install on the Mini Research Module Poisk docking targets, antennas of the Kurs radio system and additional handrails in the areas of exit hatches.

Exiting onto the ISS surface was performed from the docking compartment-module Pirs of the Russian Segment of the space station.

The exit hatch of the module was opened at 13:05 Moscow Time (MSK). Its closure was completed at 18:49 MSK. The duration of open space operations was 5 hours 44 minutes.

The activities were performed in support of the Poisk module integration into the ISS Russian Segment.

The integration of the module makes it possible to start its utilization, in particular as a docking port for Russian manned and unmanned spacecraft, as an additional airlock to support space walks and as an additional space to accommodate scientific equipment needed to conduct an expanding space experimentation and research program.

The verification of the Poisk module integration and serviceability will be performed in the course of redocking Soyuz TMA-16 manned spacecraft scheduled for January 21, 2010, from the axial docking port of Zvezda module to the port on the Research Module.

In the course of the spacewalk a platform carrying Biorisk-MSN container was dismantled from the Pirs docking compartment/module and taken inside the space station for storage and subsequent delivery to Earth on-board Soyuz TMA-16 in March 2010.

Preparations for and performance of the operations were monitored from the Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M) by specialists from S.P.Korolev RSC Energia and organizations involved in the implementation of the ISS program.

 

  For information:

1. That was the 24th scheduled spacewalk from the ISS Russian Segment and the third space walk in the modified space suits Orlan-MK. Altogether, there have been 30 space walks from the ISS Russian Segment, including six unscheduled space walks.
2. Dismantling of the platform carrying Biorisk-MSN container was performed under the program of the biomedical experiment Biorisk. The objective of the 30-months exposure of the biological specimens inside this container was to evaluate the possibility in principle of preserving the viability of microorganisms exposed to long-duration space flight.
3. Currently working on-board ISS is a crew of five.
4. ISS flies in the orbit with the following parameters: the maximum altitude of 355.2 km, the minimum altitude of 333.1 km, the orbital period of 91.2 minutes.

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