Cosmonauts break record of longest Russian spacewalk

With a spacewalk lasting eight hours and 13 minutes, two cosmonauts have broken the previous record for longest Russian spacewalk of eight hours and seven minutes.

To upgrade a high gain antenna system, Expedition 54 Commander Alexander Misurkin and Flight Engineer Anton Shkaplerov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos began the spacewalk from the International Space Station (ISS) at 10.34 am EST on Friday (9.04 pm Friday India time) and completed it at 6.47 pm EST (5.17 am Saturday India time).

During the record-breaking spacewalk, the duo installed a new electronics and telemetry box for an antenna on the Zvezda service module to enhance communications between Russian flight controllers and the Russian modules, NASA scientists wrote in a blog post.

The antenna system appears to be working normally, the blog post said.

It was the 207th spacewalk in support of International Space Station assembly and maintenance, the fourth in Misurkin's career, and the second for Shkaplerov.

The record for longest spacewalk is held by by NASA astronauts. The spacewalk that lasted for eight hours and 56 minutes was performed in 2001.

--IANS

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