During training aboard the International Space Station, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin tested a new safety tether configuration designed for work outside the station in open space. The exercises included practicing standard operations and simulating possible off-nominal situations on the external surface of the Russian segment of the ISS.
The traditional safety tether system involved the use of two tethers: a short one (about 1 meter) and a spring-loaded tether of variable length capable of extending up to 3 meters. Under the new methodology, both tethers now have variable length, significantly increasing cosmonauts' mobility while moving along the station's hull.
As cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev reported, a similar configuration had already been used during the two previous spacewalks by the crew consisting of Sergey Ryzhikov and Aleksey Zubritsky. According to him, the cosmonauts gave a positive assessment of the new system's effectiveness. In addition, specialists had rehearsed this configuration in hydrolaboratory conditions in advance, and during the current training session they used both the classic and the updated safety tether configurations to compare their functionality in various scenarios.