Watch 2 Russian cosmonauts take 5-hour spacewalk outside the ISS today

Two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, conducted a five-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS). The extravehicular activity (EVA) took place from the Russian segment of the orbiting complex, with the astronauts installing a solar radiation experiment on the Zvezda service module and removing scientific equipment from the Poisk and Nauka modules. If time permitted, they planned to photograph a malfunctioning antenna on the Progress 94 cargo spacecraft, which had failed to deploy earlier in March. This spacewalk marked the second EVA of 2026 and the second for Kud-Sverchkov, who commands the current Expedition 74 mission aboard the ISS. For Mikaev, a flight engineer, it was his first spacewalk. The two cosmonauts were distinguishable by the colored stripes on their spacesuits: red for Kud-Sverchkov and blue for Mikaev. The operation was part of ongoing maintenance and scientific work conducted by the Russian space agency Roscosmos to support the ISS’s functionality and research capabilities. The EVA followed a previous spacewalk in March by NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams, who spent seven hours preparing the station for a new solar array installation. Since the ISS began hosting continuous human presence in November 2000, astronauts and cosmonauts have completed a total of 278 spacewalks, underscoring the critical role of EVAs in maintaining and upgrading the station’s systems. The spacewalk was broadcast live by NASA and covered by spaceflight news outlets, highlighting the international cooperation and technical expertise involved in sustaining the ISS as a hub for scientific research and human space exploration.