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Russian, U.S. ISS astronauts taking part in spacewalk

RIA Novosti

23/12/2008 09:26 KOROLYOV (Moscow Region), December 23 (RIA Novosti) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station started a spacewalk on Tuesday that is expected to last around six hours, Russia's Mission Control said.

During the spacewalk Russia's Yury Lonchakov and U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke, who arrived on the orbital station in October, will install a Langmuir probe on the ISS dock to measure electromagnetic fields in an attempt to solve a problem with Soyuz landings.

Some analysts have said that these fields may have been a factor in the steeper-than-normal reentry of Soyuz capsules in April and October last year, which raised concerns of the safety of the landings.

Wearing Russian-made Orlan spacesuits the pair will install a device, as part of European Space Agency's EXPOSE-R experiment, on a platform on the Zvezda module to test the effects of space on a number of materials.

The astronauts will also remove the second of three BIORISK-MSN experimental containers, which were installed externally in June 2007 and are designed to study the effects of space on bacteria.

Lonchakov is taking part in his first spacewalk while Fincke has participated in five previous walks.