The last hours are ticking at the ISS for Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolay Chub to prepare for an open space walk. Astronaut Konstantin Borisov will oversee the Russian segment of the station and assist his colleagues on board the ISS.
The work will last almost seven hours and will be broadcast live on all Roscosmos resources. The opening of the hatch of the Poisk module will take place at 20:55 Moscow time.
Kononenko and Chub will be the first inhabitants of the ISS to go into open space after the recent accident on the Russian module "Science". The coolant leak from the external radiator circuit and the investigation of the causes of the accident led NASA to ban astronauts from spacewalk until the end of the year.
However, Roscosmos didn't cancel the planned extravehicular activities for Chub and Kononenko. They have a unique and responsible mission: to get to the site of the hydraulic line breakthrough, inspect this place and take pictures to be sent to Earth.
The astronauts are also left with their previous tasks. They need to install a radar on the affected Science module for observing the Earth's surface and launch the student nanosatellite "Parus-MGTU".