spacetoday.net: Cosmonauts carry out another ISS spacewalk

Posted: Wed, Jul 16, 2008, 7:47 AM ET (1147 GMT)
ISS EVA on 2008 July 15 (NASA)

Two Russian cosmonauts carried out the second spacewalk outside the ISS in as many weeks, installing a docking target and performing other work on the orbiting outpost. Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko spent nearly six hours outside the ISS on the EVA, which started at 1:08 pm EDT (1708 GMT). The primary purpose of the spacewalk was to install a docking target on a zenith post on the Zvezda module to accommodate the arrival of a research module that will be added there next year. The two also maintained instruments mounted on the station's exterior and repair a ham radio antenna. The spacewalk work proceeded smoothly, and lacked the drama of last week's spacewalk, when the two had to replace an explosive bolt on the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS that had been linked to reentry problems in previous Soyuz spacecraft.