In a remarkable display of precision and teamwork, Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner successfully executed the last planned spacewalk of 2024, outside the International Space Station (ISS) on December 19. Their mission involved installing an X-ray detector and disposing of obsolete equipment, a crucial operation to ensure the continued functionality of the ISS.
During the spacewalk, flight engineer Alexey Ovchinin took a brief ride on the European Robotic Arm (ERA) to discard used equipment collected during the mission. His colleague, Aleksandr Gorbunov, adeptly controlled the 37-foot-long arm from inside the ISS, ensuring that the disposed items would burn upon reentering Earth’s atmosphere. “Here it goes, it is floating away,” Ovchinin remarked as he released the bundle, which included electrical connectors and an experiment boom.
The spacewalk began at 10:36 a.m. EST when Ovchinin and Vagner opened the airlock on the Poisk module. They first proceeded to the Zvezda module to install the ‘All-Sky Monitor,’ an X-ray spectrometer. According to Roscosmos, this instrument will allow scientists to observe the celestial sphere in the X-ray wavelength range periodically over three years.
Following the installation, the cosmonauts replaced outdated electrical connector panels on Zvezda with new ones. The discarded panels were later added to the bundle of trashed materials. They collected experimental panels, which exposed certain materials and biological samples to space conditions. These panels will be examined on Earth for further study.
As their spacewalk wrapped up, Ovchinin and Vagner jettisoned towels used for cleaning their spacesuit gloves. Due to limited time, they postponed moving an exterior control panel for the ERA, which would have facilitated future spacewalks but was not essential at the moment.
The spacewalk concluded at 5:53 p.m., lasting 7 hours and 17 minutes. It marked the 272nd extravehicular activity conducted to support the maintenance and upgrade of the ISS since 1998. This was Ovchinin’s second spacewalk, totaling 13 hours and 18 minutes spent in space. For Vagner, it was his first such mission.
The recent spacewalk by Ovchinin and Vagner highlights the ongoing efforts to maintain and enhance the International Space Station’s capabilities. As they concluded another successful mission, their work ensures that the ISS remains a pivotal platform for scientific research and discovery. The data collected from these operations contribute to our understanding of space, promising insights for future explorations.
Source: Space
