COSMONAUTS TO PERFORM 28TH RUSSIAN SPACE STATION SPACEWALK

For the second time in less than a month, two Russian cosmonauts will venture outside the International Space Station on Feb. 16 to install a pair of earthquake and lightning sensing experiments, and to retrieve a pair of spacecraft material evaluation panels.

Expedition 26 Flight Engineers Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka are scheduled to float outside the Pirs airlock at 8:15 a.m. EST Wednesday to begin the five-and-a-half-hour excursion. Both spacewalkers will wear Russian Orlan-MK spacesuits. On their previous spacewalk, completed Jan. 21, they completed installation of a new high-speed data transmission system, removed an old plasma pulse experiment, installed a camera for the new Rassvet docking module and retrieved a materials exposure package. That spacewalk lasted 5 hours, 23 minutes.

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