Russian cosmonauts perform spacewalk

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - Roscosmos' cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky have walked out into open space to install research equipment on the external surface of the International Space Station (ISS), according to the state corporation's broadcast.

The cosmonauts opened the exit hatch in the ISS Russian segment's Poisk Module and began reaching for the ISS exterior. The estimated duration of the spacewalk is six hours 28 minutes.

According to the plan, Ryzhikov and Zubritsky are to install an impulse plasma injector (the Impuls experiment) on the Nauka Module, replace a cartridge in the equipment for growing semiconductors (the Ekran-M experiment) and clean a porthole. The cosmonauts will also move the external control panel of the remote manipulator ERA (European Robotic Arm).

This is a third spacewalk for Ryzhikov and second for Zubritsky.

The previous one, under the Russian program, was on October 16, when Ryzhikov and Zubritsky installed Ekran-M research equipment on the ISS' exterior. That spacewalk lasted six hours eleven minutes.