MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) - The Russian cosmonauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will perform spacewalks on January 19, January 27 and February 2 to integrate the Prichal module and the European Robotic Arm (ERA).
According to the ISS Expedition 66 plan, published in the Russian Space journal, the Russian cosmonauts will conduct the first spacewalk on January 19 to lay cables between the Prichal nodal module and the Nauka module as part of their integration.
On January 27 and February 2, Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer will perform spacewalks to work with the ERA.
ESA said on September 23 that specialists detected glitches in data transmission between the ISS and the new Nauka module, and their cause was being studied.
Head of the Energia Corporation's Space Flight Center Alexander Kaleri said earlier that three spacewalks would be necessary to install the ERA robotic arm. He also said that cosmonauts would be using the ERA to install additional equipment during the three subsequent spacewalks.
ESA astronauts will help fine-tune the ERA robotic arm installed on the Nauka module, Kaleri said.
The ERA autonomous relocatable robotic arm, built by German company Fokker Space, is part of the Nauka module's standard electromechanical equipment.
As the ISS Russian segment's main robotic arm, it will place and remove payloads from the station's surface, will monitor the state of its surface and will implement the remote controlled relocation of cosmonauts on a movable work platform during spacewalks.