On August 20, 2012 Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Yury Malenchenko completed a five hour and 50 minute spacewalk having carried out all planned maintenance tasks on the International Space Station (ISS). The cosmonauts moved the "Strela-2” cargo boom from the "Pirs” docking compartment to the "Zarya” module and installed micrometeoroid debris shields on the exterior of the "Zvezda” service module. They also launched the "Sphere” microsatellite and collected a number of bio specimens from the surface of a docking module as part of the "Biorisk” scientific experiment. The unique Biorisk experiment studies the impact of vacuum, subzero and hot temperatures and radiation on biological objects. It is impossible to simulate these processes on Earth. Both Padalka and Malenchenko are veteran cosmonauts with a lot of exp
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On August 20, 2012 at 15:22 UTC the "Progress M-15M” unmanned supply spacecraft was deorbited. Non-burnt fragments of the spacecraft sank in the South part of the Pacific at 16:12 UTC.