A Russian astronaut today (December 19) took a short ride on the tip of a robotic arm to dispose of used equipment that he and his crew recovered during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
Expedition 72 flight engineer Alexei Ovtinin secured his leg to one end of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) today towards the end of his and Ivan Wagner’s seven-hour extravehicular activity (EVA). . Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov controlled the movement of the 37-foot (11.3-meter) arm from inside the space station.
At its destination, Ovchinin threw overboard a bundle of electrical connectors, covers, and experimental booms that were no longer needed, to avoid contact with the orbiting laboratory before burning up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
A view from a camera attached to the helmet of Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin’s spacesuit shows him just minutes after he completed jettisoning the International Space Station on Thursday, December 19, 2024. , a bunch of garbage is reflected on the Earth’s horizon as a just spec (top right). (Image credit: NASA+)
“Look, it’s floating,” Ovtinin said as he pushed the bundle toward the back end of the space station and released it. “I’m leaving in good order.”
Related: Spacewalks: How they work and key milestones
Ovchinin and Wagner opened the hatch to the airlock of the Poisk mini research module at 10:36 a.m. ET (15:36 GMT) and began the spacewalk. Having gotten out of the station and acquired the necessary tools for the excursion, the two cosmonauts proceeded to the Zvezda service module, where they installed an X-ray spectrometer “All Sky Monitor”.
Using the All-Sky Monitor, “scientists conduct regular observations of nearly the entire celestial sphere (84%) in the X-ray wavelength range every 72 days over a three-year period (such as A total of 15 observations are planned),” according to a Roscosmos statement.
From there, Ovchinin and Wagner worked to replace the four electrical connector patch panels on the exterior of Zvezda with new replacements. The old panel was part of a bundle that Ovchinin discarded late in his spacewalk.
The astronauts also collected experimental material exposures (“tests and endurance”) and biological samples (“controls”) to assess their reactions to the space environment. Ovchinin and Wagner took the experimental panel back to the station and returned it to Earth aboard the Soyuz spacecraft for further research on the ground.
As a final task, the spacewalkers threw away the towels they had used to dry their spacesuit gloves before returning to the airlock.
Due to time constraints, the spacewalkers postponed relocating the external control panel of Europe’s robotic arm. The move would clear the conversion path for future spacewalks, but was otherwise unimportant to the station’s operations.
Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin (center) and Ivan Wagner (bottom) work outside the International Space Station during a spacewalk, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (Image provided by: NASA+)
Thursday’s spacewalk ended at 5:53 p.m. (22:53 GMT), seven hours and 17 minutes after it began. This was the 272nd spacewalk since 1998 to support assembly, maintenance, and upgrades of the International Space Station.
This was the first spacewalk during Expedition 72 and the third conducted at the International Space Station this year (due to a water leak while both crews were still inside the Quest airlock). (including a shortened U.S. spacewalk of just 31 minutes). Five more spacewalks will be conducted in 2024, including four spacewalks outside China’s Tiangong Space Station by the crews of Shenzhou 17, 18, and 19, and one by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The world’s first commercial spacewalk was performed by the crew of Polar’s Dawn outside the ship.
It was Ovchinin’s second spacewalk and Wagner’s first. Ovchinin completed 6 hours and 1 minute of spacewalks in 2019, for a total of 13 hours and 18 minutes working in the vacuum of space.
