Dmitri Yur'yevich Kondrat'yev Is Blogging From Space

Spacewalks
Kondratyev will participate in two spacewalks during his stay aborard the space station as an Expedition 26 and 27 Flight Engineer and Commander.
In Januray, 2011 Kondratyev and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka are scheduled to perform a spacewalk (Russian EVA #27). They will focus on the relocation of a video camera on the Rassvet Module (MRM1), from the active side of its docking assembly to the passive. Kondratyev and Skripochka will also remove one experiment, install two and perform another. The experiment Kondratyev and Skripochka are to remove is a container that measures contamination and monitors changes in samples of materials from the outside surfaces of the space station’s Russian segment. The experiments that they will be installing include an onboard laser communication terminal that uses laser technology for high-speed data transmission, and a Biorisk experiment that looks at the effects of microbial bacteria and fungus on structural materials used in spacecraft construction. Sckripochka and Kondratyev will also remove an antenna from the Zvezda module’s transfer compartment cone.