Russian cosmonauts conduct spacewalk despite smoke and space station alarm

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The spacewalk began at 10:51 a.m. ET on Thursday, with live coverage available on NASA’s TV channel and website, and is expected to last six hours and 30 minutes. The pair of space walkers were outside the space station last Friday for nearly eight hours.

The spacewalk continued as planned despite the space station crew being awoken by a fire alarm around 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday night. The alarm sounded for a minute after sensors detected smoke in the Russian Zvezda module. The smell of smoke and burnt plastic was also present in the American parts of the space station.

The crew reacted quickly and replaced the air filters and all signs of smoke cleared, according to NASA. However, the source of the smoke has not been identified.

This is the second of what could represent up to 11 spacewalks by cosmonauts as they work on Nauka, a multi-purpose lab module that includes additional space for research and dormitories.

In July, the newly docked Russian module accidentally triggered its thrusters, causing the space station to lose control. At the time, three NASA astronauts, two Russian cosmonauts, a Japanese astronaut and a European Space Agency astronaut were on board.
Dmitry Rogozin, chief executive of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, told CNN: “We had a problem,” and he blamed it on human error.

Nauka took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 21 and docked on July 29.

During Thursday’s spacewalk, Novitskiy and Dubrovnik will install handrails and complete all cable routing work left unfinished during the September 3 spacewalk, which kicked off the cable connections of power supply and Ethernet for the module.

Novitskiy is extravehicular crew member 1 in the Russian Orlan space suit with the red stripes, and Dubrovnik wears the space suit with the blue stripes as extravehicular crew member 2.

The exit will be the third spacewalk for Dubrovnik and Novitskiy, as well as the 243rd spacewalk in support of the assembly, maintenance and upgrade of the space station.

International Space Station briefly loses control after new Russian module misfires

Meanwhile, a spacewalk scheduled for August 24, which was to include NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, will now take place on September 12. – with some changes.

The August spacewalk was postponed a day before it happened due to what NASA described as a “minor medical issue” experienced by Vande Hei.

While no further details on this issue – other than that it was not a medical emergency – have been shared, Vande Hei will now provide internal support during the spacewalk of the September 12 as he continues to recover.

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European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet will take his place alongside Hoshide. During the walk, Hoshide and Pesquet will install a modification kit that will prepare for future Roll-Out solar array installation work.

It will be the first exit into the Quest airlock of the orbiting laboratory by two international partner astronauts of the space station, according to NASA.

A 360-degree virtual reality camera will film Hoshide and Pesquet during their spacewalk, which is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. ET on Sunday. Live coverage will air on NASA’s TV channel and website from 7 a.m.

CNN’s Kristin Fisher contributed to this report.

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