astronauts make adjustments to the International Space Station

Moscow (dBTechno) - Russian cosmonaut Fyodr Yurchikhin and US astronaut Clay Anderson entered open space on Monday in order to make adjustments to the International Space Station (ISS) in advance of a change in the station’s orbit.

The spacewalk was expected to last approximately 6 hours, according to NASA representatives in the Russian capital.

“The main task is the removal of an ammonia reservoir with a mass of 635 kilograms,” said Sergei Puzanov, a NASA official speaking from the Russian Mission Control outside of Moscow, Interfax reported.

The refrigerator-sized ammonia reservoir had been used in the ISS’s heating system but was no longer needed, the Russian news agency reported.

Anderson was to lead the spacewalk. It was the US astronaut’s first spacewalk, and the third for Yurchikhin.

The ISS crew’s third member, Oleg Kotov, stayed behind to operate the station’s robotic arm, known as Canadarm2. It was the first time a Russian crew member had operated the arm, located on the US side of the international station.

Before the massive ammonia chamber was moved, Anderson also disposed of a stand that had been used for a video camera pointed at the Earth from the ISS’s orbit.

Using the robotic arm, Kotov pushed Anderson a safe distance from the ISS, and the American, in the weightlessness of space, pushed the 100-kilogram stand away from the space station. The stand was expected to burn up in the earth’s atmosphere in hours.

A Progress 25 cargo ship was expected to adjust the ISS’s orbit by firing its thrusters after the Anderson and Yurchikhin were safely back aboard the station. The orbit change comes in preparation of a Progress 26 docking on August 5.

Days after the new cargo ship arrives, replacing the Progress 24, the space shuttle Endeavour is planned to reach the ISS on August 9.