Two Russian astronauts raised their country’s flag on the International Space Station after completing maintenance works riddled with difficulties.
During the mission that finished late Thursday, the ground control centre in Korolyov outside Moscow had first ordered Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin not to instal a camera platform outside the station after they discovered that the platform’s baseplate was misaligned, the US space agency said.
However, after determining that the issue could be corrected, the astronauts went ahead with the installation.
During the six-hour spacewalk, Yurchikhin and Misurkin also installed gap spanners to help spacewalkers move from one of the station’s modules to another and inspected antenna covers.
After completion, they raised the Russian flag in space to mark their country’s flag day, celebrated annually on August 22.