spacetoday.net: Cosmonauts perform ISS spacewalk

Posted: Wed, Aug 22, 2012, 1:57 PM ET (1757 GMT)
ISS EVA 2012 August 20 (NASA)

Two Russian cosmonauts spent nearly six hours outside the International Space Station on Monday, performing work on the station and also deploying a small satellite. Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko spent 5 hours and 51 minutes outside the ISS on the EVA, which started at 11:37 am EDT (1537 GMT) Monday, about an hour late in order to troubleshoot a leak between ISS modules. The two moved a crane from the Pirs module to the Zarya module, part of work to prepare for the removal of Pirs, which will be by a Russian multipurpose lab module. The two also installed shielding on the exterior of the Zvezda module and deployed Sphera, a small satellite outfitted with reflectors to help verify models of the orbital decay of spacecraft and orbital debris. The spacewalk was the first of two planned for the ISS this month. On August 30 Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide will perform an EVA to carry out various maintenance tasks on the station.