The Italian Samantha Cristoforetti began this Thursday the first space walk of a European astronaut from the International Space Station (ISS), according to images transmitted by NASA.

The extravehicular activity (EVA) of this member of the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut corps, carried out at an altitude of more than 400 km, is scheduled to last six and a half hours in the company of the Russian cosmonaut and commander of the ISS Oleg Artemyev.

Second stay in the Italian space

Their mission began just before 15:00 GMT, in Russian Orlan-type spacesuits. It includes several tasks related to the Russian scientific module Nauka and, in particular, to the new robotic arm ERA (European Robotic Arm).

This is the second time in space for Samantha Cristoforetti, a 45-year-old fighter pilot and engineer, who left for the ISS on April 27. She holds the record for the longest space stay there for a woman on a mission, with a stay of 199 days in orbit, in 2014 and 2015. This time she should assume command of the station there, another first for a European astronaut.

Preparation of a robotic arm

Launched into orbit in July 2021 after many delays, the ERA robotic arm was installed a few months ago outside the Russian module of the ISS. 11 meters long, it allows maintenance or equipment tasks to be carried out, mainly on the Russian segment, and can be controlled from inside or outside the station. It can also operate in automatic mode and even be directed from an ESA ground station.

Samantha Cristoforetti and Oleg Artemiev’s EVA, the latter’s sixth, is the third outing dedicated to ERA preparation.

It comes as former Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin, sacked from his post last Friday, had previously “ordered” Russian cosmonauts to cease all work on the ERA robotic arm. A retaliatory move to ESA’s announcement that it would cease all cooperation with the Russian agency for the ExoMars mission due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.