Russian cosmonauts fulfill tasks of spacewalk, return to ISS 2 hours earlier than planned

MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) - Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub accomplished the tasks of their spacewalk and returned to the International Space Station (ISS) two hours earlier than initially planned, Roscosmos said.

"Crewmembers of the 71st long-duration expedition to the International Space Station, Roscosmos State Corporation cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, closed the hatch to the Poisk mini-research module at 10:33 p.m. Moscow time today [on April 25]," Roscosmos said.

Their spacewalk lasted for four hours and 36 minutes instead of the initially planned six hours and 36 minutes, it said.

Kononenko and Chub opened the hatch of the Poisk module aboard the station's Russian segment at 5:57 p.m. Moscow time on Thursday.

During the spacewalk, the cosmonauts completed the deployment of a small radar system on the Nauka module, which failed to deploy during the previous spacewalk. They also installed equipment for the Kvarts-M and Perspektiva-KM scientific experiments on the Poisk module, took wipe samples from the surface of the Nauka module, dismantled the container for the Biorisk-MSN scientific equipment and deployed a pressure and deposition control unit on the Poisk module.

It was Kononenko's seventh spacewalk in his career as a cosmonaut, and Chub's second.

The crew of the 71st long-term mission, made up of Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin, as well as NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Tracy Dyson, is currently working aboard the ISS.