ISS - Expedition 67 Mission patch.
April 29, 2022
Two Roscosmos cosmonauts went on a spacewalk to activate the new European robotic arm (ERA) less than a day after the SpaceX Crew-4 mission arrived at the International Space Station. The next mission event taking place will occur next week when four Expedition 67 astronauts complete their stay aboard the orbiting lab.
Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev exited the station in their Orlan spacesuits at 10:58 a.m. EDT on Thursday beginning the fifth spacewalk of the year. Fellow cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov assisted the spacewalkers from inside the station’s Russian segment as they released the ERA from its launch restraints on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module and monitored the new robotic arm’s first motion.
Image above: Cosmonauts (from left) Denis Matveev and Oleg Artemyev worked outside the station’s Russian segment during the first spacewalk to outfit Nauka and configure the European robotic arm on April 18, 2022. Image Credit: NASA TV.
The day before, the SpaceX Dragon Freedom crew ship, carrying four Crew-4 astronauts, docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 7:37 p.m. EDT. Less than two hours later, NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins with ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, entered the station beginning a four-and-a-half month research mission aboard the space station. The 11-person crew will live and work together until next week when the SpaceX Crew-3 mission ends.
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Station Commander Tom Marshburn along with Flight Engineers Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron, all NASA astronauts, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, are packing up to end their stay on the orbiting lab. The four astronauts representing the Commercial Crew Program are finalizing a six-month science mission on the space lab. NASA and SpaceX mission managers are planning for the quartet to enter the Dragon Endurance crew ship and undock from Harmony’s forward port for a splashdown off the coast of Florida next week.
Related links:
Expedition 67: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition67/index.html
Nauka multipurpose laboratory module: https://www.roscosmos.ru/tag/nauka/
Harmony module: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/harmony
Commercial Crew Program: https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/
Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/overview.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Image (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/Heidi Lavelle.
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