spacetoday.net: Cosmonauts remove Soyuz bolt in spacewalk

Posted: Fri, Jul 11, 2008, 6:52 AM ET (1052 GMT)
ISS EVA on 2008 July 10 (NASA)

Two Russian cosmonauts performed a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday, removing an explosive bolt from the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station. Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko spent six hours and 18 minutes outside the station, removing an explosive bolt from a connector between the Soyuz's instrumentation and descent modules. The bolt is thought to be part of a problem that has prevented the modules from separating cleanly prior to reentry, causing the crew capsule to perform a ballistic reentry that subjects the crew to higher g forces and puts the capsule hundreds of kilometers off-course. The spacewalk carried a higher-than-normal level of danger because that area of the spacecraft was not designed to be serviced in space, and because of concerns about the explosive bolt. The spacewalk was the first for both cosmonauts.