Russian ISS crewmembers go on spacewalk
KOROLYOV. Aug 15 (Interfax) - Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergei Prokopyev have begun a spacewalk from the International Space Station (ISS).
They opened the docking hatches of the Pirs docking compartment at 6:58 p.m., left the ISS, and began working in outer space, an Interfax correspondent reported.
This is the 45th spacewalk of Russian cosmonauts under the mission program of the Russian ISS segment. It is planned to last six hours and ten minutes.
Artemyev and Prokopyev have launched SiriusSat nano-satellites as part of the RadioSkaf space experiment.
RadioSkaf is an experiment to develop the technology of creating RadioSkaf-type super-small spacecraft for various purposes on the basis of outdated Orlan-M spacesuits, develop the nano-satellite's equipment for independent flight, and send data from the satellite to amateur radio stations on the ground.
Earlier, Artemyev and Prokopyev launched the two "student" nano-satellites Tanyusha-YuZGU-3 and Tanyusha-YuZGU-4, increasing the RadioSkaf orbital cluster to four. Interaction between these nano-satellites is planned to be established as part of this space experiment.
This is Artemyev's third spacewalk and Prokopyev's first.