Russian cosmonauts completed work in outer space and returned to the ISS

Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner closed the exit hatch of the small research module "Poisk" on the International Space Station (ISS). This was reported in the state corporation "Roscosmos" on December 20.

During the spacewalk the cosmonauts mounted on the service module "Zvezda" and connected the X-ray spectrometer SPIN-X1-MVN. This spectrometer will be used to provide an almost complete view of the celestial sphere every 72 days.

In addition, Ovchinin and Wagner dismantled two exposure devices for the benefit of the Test experiment and two panels for the Endurance experiment, which had been outside the ISS for 3.5 years. The astronauts also removed the Indicator-MKS scientific instrumentation of the Control experiment, installed on the Search module in June 2013.

After that, Ovchinin pushed into space the stowage with the dismantled elements, which should then burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

It is specified that the cosmonauts' spacewalk lasted 7 hours 17 minutes and 47 seconds.

Ovchinin and Wagner 's spacewalk began on December 19 at 18:36. It was planned to last 6 hours and 43 minutes.

Earlier, on April 26, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub went into outer space to install scientific equipment. The tasks were completed ahead of schedule, so the exit took 4 hours and 36 minutes. At the same time, Kononenko managed to take several selfies.