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More Details for 2002-01-11

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The Expedition Four crew is completing its fifth week in space aboard the International Space Station, continuing preparations for the first spacewalk of the five-month mission. The six-hour spacewalk by Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineer Carl Walz is scheduled to begin at 2:56 p.m. CST, Monday, Jan. 14. This week, with the assistance of their crewmate, Flight Engineer Dan Bursch, the two spacewalkers outfitted and tested their Russian Orlan spacesuits and prepared the tools and equipment they will use on Monday.

After exiting the station from the Russian Pirs docking compartment, Onufrienko and Walz will use a Russian cargo crane that is already installed on Pirs to relocate a similar crane from the station's Pressurized Mating Adapter 1 onto Pirs. On future spacewalks, the two cranes, called Strela (the Russian word for "arrow"), can be used to maneuver equipment and spacewalkers on the station's exterior. Onufrienko and Walz also will install an amateur radio antenna on a handrail at the end of the Zvezda service module.

Monday's spacewalk will be the thirty-second in support of the assembly of the International Space Station, the seventh such excursion conducted from the station itself, and the sixth based out of the station's Russian segment. A second spacewalk this month -- to be conducted by Onufrienko and Bursch -- is targeted for Jan. 25. The plan for this spacewalk currently includes the installation of thruster deflector shields on the end of Zvezda.

In addition to preparing for next week's spacewalk, the Expedition Four crew continued a series of upgrades to the station's computer hardware. The crew also completed the first session of a Human Life Sciences experiment called Renal, which is investigating ways to prevent the formation of renal stones during long-duration spaceflights.