Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev spent 6 hours and 5 minutes outside the International Space Station on Wednesday, swapping experiments on the Russian segment and adding a new sensor that will track solar flares from low Earth orbit. The spacewalk began at 10:18 a.m. EDT and ended at 4:23 p.m. EDT, according to NASA.
The pair installed a solar radiation measurement device on the Zvezda service module, retrieved a cassette from the Nauka module containing samples that recorded how semiconductor materials crystallize in microgravity, and pulled a microorganism exposure experiment from the exterior of the Poisk module. As a contingency task, the cosmonauts also photographed and secured a failed Kurs rendezvous antenna on the Progress 94 cargo spacecraft, which never deployed properly after the resupply ship arrived in March.
It was the 279th spacewalk in support of station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades, the second EVA for Kud-Sverchkov and the first for Mikaev. The Orlan suits, identified by red and blue stripes respectively, returned to airlock pressure without reported anomalies.