Russians on ISS start preparation of spacesuits for spacewalk

"Today the cosmonauts are beginning work with the Orlan-MK spacesuits in which they will spend almost six hours outside the station," the Mission Control Centre (MCC) outside Moscow told Itar-Tass. Korniyenko and Yurchikhin are to prepare replaceable components of their spacesuits for work in space, as well as auxiliary and personal equipment.

Orlan-MK is the fifth Orlan modification and the first Russian computerised spacesuit. In the process of its putting on it "tells" a cosmonaut which systems and in what succession it is necessary to control before the extravehicular activity (EVA) and reports on the state of these systems. In case of contingencies (for example, increased oxygen consumption and so on) the corresponding information appears on the screen, a beep sounds and the system prompts how to act. In the event of forgetting by a cosmonaut of something outside the ISS a special programme will help him to transfer the control to a simpler regime of Orlan-M.

The first "intelligent" spacesuit was brought in orbit in the middle of October 2008 and the second and third - in the first half of 2009, the MCC recalled. The spacesuits that were tested in three EVA sessions, according to the flight manager of the Russian ISS segment, Vladimir Solovyov, "behaved faultlessly" during the cosmonauts' work outside the ISS.

The main task of the EVA of Korniyenko and Yurchikhin is to complete integration of the new Russian module Rassvet (MIM-1) into the Russian segment of the orbiting station, the MCC said. The spacewalk is planned for July 26.

According to NASA's release, the six Expedition 24 crewmembers aboard the International Space Station continued their preparations for an upcoming spacewalk and worked on science activities Wednesday.

Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Mikhail Korniyenko prepared equipment they will take out of the Pirs docking compartment and into space during a six-hour spacewalk scheduled to begin the evening of July 26. The spacewalkers will prepare the recently delivered Rassvet module with a Kurs automated rendezvous capability for future automated dockings by Russian spacecraft. It will be Yurchikhin's third spacewalk and the first for Korniyenko.

Commander Alexander Skvortsov continued to unpack cargo from the ISS Progress 38 cargo ship that docked July 4.

In the US segment of the station, Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Shannon Walker and Doug Wheelock joined up for several hours to conduct eye examinations. After Wheelock set up and checked out the Health Maintenance System, they took turns as subjects for an eye examination scan executed by one of the others standing in as the Crew Medical Officer, according to NASA; Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS.

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