MISSION CONTROL (Moscow Region), June 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov conducted the second spacewalk of their current mission on the ISS station carrying out maintenance operations and experiments, Mission Control said Thursday.
Apart from routine maintenance, the cosmonauts installed a Biorisk-MSN bacteriological module in open space to study how different strains of bacteria survive intense radiation.
They also installed the remaining 12 of 17 aluminum panels to the Russian section (Zvezda) of the ISS to reduce the risk of damage by debris and meteoroid impact, a problem raised in an independent safety task force report.
The first five panels were installed during the May 30-31 spacewalk.
U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams stayed aboard the ISS during the five and a half hour spacewalk providing back up to the two Russians, who worked in Russian-made Orlan-M spacesuits.
