On 28 April 2022 Expedition 67 Flight Engineers and Roscosmos Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev began their EVA (Russian spacewalk 53) when they exited the Poisk module airlock at 1458 GMT. Their mission was to continue activating the new European robotic arm which is attached to the Nauka module. The astronauts tested the first commanded movements of the 37-foot-long robotic arm and its grappling ability during their spacewalk.
Cosmonauts release thermal blankets bundle “overboard” during their spacewalk work on Nauka module on 28 April 2022. Courtesy: NASA TV
The cosmonauts also fully deployed the antenna on the Prichal module of the ISS after unsnarling a cable that had left the antenna partially deployed. The antenna had caused a small issue during the docking of Soyuz MS-21 on 18 March 2022.
During the EVA the spacewalkers released a set of thermal blankets overboard into space which will decay naturally. More controversially, given the war with Ukraine at the time, they also unfurled a Soviet/Russian flag celebrating victory in the Second World War on the outside of the station. The hatch was closed after 7 hours and 42 minutes at 2242 GMT. This was the fifth EVA for Artemyev and Matveev’s second spacewalk.
David Todd contributed to this story
