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Two Russian cosmonauts gave the Worldwide House Station’s new robotic arm a little bit of a exercise on Thursday.
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev exited the area station at 10:58 a.m. ET to start their spacewalk, which lasted for seven hours and 42 minutes. It ended at 6:40 p.m. ET.
Artemyev was identifiable within the Russian Orlan spacesuit bearing pink stripes, whereas Matveev wore a spacesuit with blue stripes. This was the second spacewalk for Matveev and the fifth for veteran spacewalker Artemyev.
Artemyev and Matveev carried out work on the robotic arm exterior the Russian Nauka multipurpose module. Their work started throughout a spacewalk on April 18.
On this preliminary spacewalk, the duo put in and related a management panel for the 37-foot-long (11.3-meter-long) robotic arm.
Matveev and Artemyev examined the mechanism’s first motions on Thursday. The cosmonauts flexed the robotic arm’s joints, launched restraints and examined its grappling means.
Additionally they jettisoned thermal blankets that coated the robotic arm away from the station to fritter away in Earth’s environment.
This robotic arm can be used to help spacewalkers and transport any objects that must be moved exterior the area station’s Russian section sooner or later.
It was the fifth spacewalk exterior the area station this yr and the 250th total in help of assembling, sustaining and upgrading the orbiting laboratory.
These paired excursions are the primary of upcoming spacewalks that can concentrate on making ready Nauka and the robotic arm for future use.
