Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Max Suraev completed the first spacewalk of the Expedition 22 mission at 10:49 a.m. EST Thursday.

During the spacewalk, the two cosmonauts prepared the Mini-Research Module 2, known as Poisk, for future Russian vehicle dockings. Suraev and Commander Jeff Williams will be the first to use the new docking port when they relocate their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the aft port of the Zvezda service module on Jan. 21.

This was the third spacewalk for Kotov, who made two spacewalks in 2007 as an Expedition 15 flight engineer, and the first for Suraev.

Throughout the week, Kotov and Suraev completed a variety of tasks in anticipation of the spacewalk including resizing spacesuits, conducting routine spacesuit maintenance, configuring spacewalk equipment and conducting a suited "dry run" check Tuesday.

The European Space Agency has asked that ISS stay up past 2015. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/14/esa_chief_plea_to_keep_iss/

Robin Warren
KE5DQM
Ivanhoe, Tx

Here you can find the recording I made today 14 jan. 2010 16.37 local time
of the communication from the spacewalking astronouts during the ISS pass
over Europe relayed at 143.6250 MHz.
http://members.ziggo.nl/janosmail/ISS-14-01-10.wav

Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Max Suraev began the first spacewalk of the Expedition 22 mission when they opened the airlock hatches at 5:05 a.m. EST Thursday. The spacewalk is scheduled to last just under six hours with Kotov wearing the suit bearing the red stripes and Suraev wearing the suit bearing the blue stripes.

› Watch the spacewalk on NASA TV at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

During the spacewalk, the two cosmonauts will prepare the Mini-Research Module 2, known as Poisk, for future Russian vehicle dockings. Suraev and Commander Jeff Williams will be the first to use the new docking port when they relocate their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the aft port of the Zvezda service module on Jan. 21.

[img]http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/160328main_iss022e020764.jpg[/img] Image above: Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov works with spacewalk equipment and Russian Orlan spacesuits in the Pirs docking compartment of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA The five Expedition 22 crew members aboard the International Space Station tackled a busy schedule Tuesday, as they worked with the robotic arm to relocate a stowage platform and donned spacesuits for a thorough checkout. Following the crew's daily planning conference with teams on the ground, Commander Jeff Williams kicked off the workday with a leak check of the Water Processor Assembly, which along with the Urine Processor Assembly makes up the station's advanced recycling system known as the Water Recovery System.

When the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program began coordinating ISS-to-school contacts in 2001, only one school -- Luther Burbank Elementary School in Burbank, Illinois -- participated. Ten years later, more than 120 schools participated in the ARISS program in 2009 alone.

The number of ARISS-coordinated ISS-to-school contacts has climbed dramatically since that first contact in 2000. In 2001, there were 42 contacts, and in 2002, there were 40 contacts. During the first five years of the program -- 2000-2004 -- there was an average of 31.4 QSOs between the ISS and schools. In 2004, ARISS only conducted 35 contacts -- the lowest in its 10 year history -- but in 2005, 55 schools had contacted the ISS through the program. In 2006, there were 47 QSOs, 75 QSOs in 2007 and 62 in 2008. The 121 QSOs in 2009 show a jump of 95 percent over the 2008 numbers -- setting an ARISS record for the number of contacts.

NASA is still hoping to launch the shuttle Endeavour in early February as engineers scramble to repair broken hoses on the new space station module set to ride aboard the orbiter.

Endeavour is slated to launch the new Tranquility module to the International Space Station on Sunday, Feb. 7 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. But two of the module's four ammonia coolant hoses have failed standard pre-launch checks, prompting engineers to come up with a repair plan while others try to build new hoses from scratch, station managers said Monday.

"Folks are working really hard to get the hoses checked out, completed, certified [and] tested," said Pete Hasbrook, NASA manager for the Expedition 22 mission aboard the space station. "We are still working toward the Feb. 7 launch date."