Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub recently made headlines as they successfully completed a spacewalk at the International Space Station on April 25, 2024. During the spacewalk, the duo unfolded and latched the fourth panel of a synthetic radar communications system on the Russian Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.
The radar system is a significant addition as it will be used to monitor Earth’s environment, marking the first science payload mounted on Nauka. In addition to this task, Kononenko and Chub also completed various other duties outside the Russian segment of the space station.
These tasks included rotating a plume impingement unit, swabbing surfaces for analysis, and bringing inside a biological exposure experiment. The cosmonauts also installed a stowage platform for hardware adapters on the Poisk mini-research module to support future spacewalk activities.
Despite the spacewalk being planned to take up to seven hours, Kononenko and Chub managed to complete it in an impressive 4 hours and 36 minutes, running about two hours ahead of schedule. This spacewalk marked the 270th in support of International Space Station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades, totaling 71 days, 11 hours, and 25 minutes.
For Kononenko, this was his seventh spacewalk, bringing his total extravehicular activity time to 44 hours and 30 minutes over the span of three decades. Chub, on the other hand, completed his second spacewalk, bringing his total time spent outside of the ISS to 12 hours and 17 minutes.
Overall, this successful spacewalk highlights the dedication and expertise of the Russian cosmonauts as they continue to conduct essential tasks aboard the International Space Station.
