At 1424 GMT on 22 June 2023, Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin opened the Poisk module hatch on the International Space Station (ISS) to begin spacewalk VKD-59. Their mission during this EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) was to retrieve several experiment packages (including a seismic detection experiment) from both the Zvezda and Poisk modules, and to install and install new data transmission hardware outside the ISS.
Cosmonauts safely jettison the 10 year old seismic detection equipment (Seismoprognoz experiment) from the Zvezda module after 2 hours and 9 minutes into EVA. One of three experiments jettisoned during the Spacewalk. Courtesy: NASA TV.
With all their major objectives complete, the cosmonauts returned to the Poisk airlock where the hatch was closed 2048 GMT and airlock repressurization began. The EVA concluded after 6 hours and 24 minutes. This spacewalk marked Prokopyev’s seventh and Petelin’s fifth EVA in total.
