Greek-russian cosmonaut on a six-hour space walk outside ISS
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Greek-russian cosmonaut on a six-hour space walk outside ISS

Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin Grammatikopoulos, the first cosmonaut of Greek descent, will be one of the 2 cosmonauts to make a six-hour spacewalk, which will be broadcasted by NASA’s TV channel. The six-hour spacewalk, outside the International Space Station will take place on August 17, 2-17 and coverage will begin at 10 a.m. EDT.

The spacewalk will be carried out by a pair Russian cosmonauts, Expedition 52 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy. While outside the space station, the duo will manually launch five nanosatellites, each with a different purpose — not all of them scientific.

One of the miniature satellites is encased in paneling created by 3D printers. The cubed satellite will help researchers test the effects of low-Earth orbit on 3D printed materials.

Another mini satellite is being launched in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch, the world’s first artificial space satellite, as well as the 160th anniversary of the birth of Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a pioneer in the fields of astronautics and rocketry.

The cosmonauts will also install a series of struts and handrails outside the Russian module, as well collect resident samples as part of the ongoing effort to monitor microbial communities living on the space station. Earlier this year, Russian officials claimed Roscosmos scientists identified sea plankton in samples collected outside the space station.

Yurchikh has logged a total of 537 days on one space shuttle mission in 2002 and three long-duration missions on the International Space Station in 2007, 2010 and 2013. When he lands on Earth at the end of this flight, Yurchikhin will rank seventh in the world for time in space, just ahead of Whitson.

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The first cosmonaut of Greek descent

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