Expedition 22 Crew
Crew Completes First Expedition 22 Spacewalk
Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Max Suraev completed the first spacewalk of the Expedition 22 mission at 10:49 a.m. EST Thursday.
During the spacewalk, the two cosmonauts prepared the Mini-Research Module 2, known as Poisk, for future Russian vehicle dockings. Suraev and Commander Jeff Williams will be the first to use the new docking port when they relocate their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the aft port of the Zvezda service module on Jan. 21.
This was the third spacewalk for Kotov, who made two spacewalks in 2007 as an Expedition 15 flight engineer, and the first for Suraev.
Throughout the week, Kotov and Suraev completed a variety of tasks in anticipation of the spacewalk including resizing spacesuits, conducting routine spacesuit maintenance, configuring spacewalk equipment and conducting a suited “dry run” check Tuesday.
Preparations continue at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the upcoming launch of space shuttle Endeavour on its mission to the station. One of the primary objectives of the STS-130/20A mission is the delivery and activation of the new Tranquility module. Among the activation tasks are the installation of four ammonia jumper hoses that will connect Tranquility’s cooling system to the station’s cooling system. While undergoing final flight testing at a California subcontractor’s factory on Jan. 7, one of the flight hoses failed.
Tuesday, station managers decided to continue working toward a Feb. 7 launch with full mission content. They selected an alternate hose design, assembled from shorter hoses that had been previously certified and tested for use aboard the station, as the primary jumper. They also accelerated development of a redesigned set of hoses for use in the event a problem arises with the new primary design.
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