The Russians are doing a spacewalk to activate the robotic arm

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev began their approximately seven-hour spacewalk at 11:01 a.m. ET. It will be a space walk Live broadcast on NASA.

Artemyev will be recognized in the Russian Orlan spacesuit with red stripes, while Matveev wears a spacesuit with blue stripes.

It is Matveev’s first spacewalk and the fourth by veteran cosmonaut Artemyev.

This will be the fourth spacewalk to leave the space station this year and the 249th ever To support the assembly, maintenance and development of the orbital laboratory.

During a second spacewalk, on April 28, astronauts will remove the thermal blankets used to protect the robotic arm when it was launched last year along with the Nauka module. Matveev and Artemyev will also bend the joints of the robotic arm, release the restraints and test their resilience.

These are the first upcoming spacewalks that will focus on preparing Nauka and the robotic arm for future use.

In response to a question about how geopolitical tensions with Russia are affecting life on the space station, NASA astronaut Dr. Tom Marshburn told a news conference Friday that this is a “very, very friendly group relationship together here, and let’s work together.”

He said the NASA crew and Russian cosmonauts regularly share meals and watch movies together.

“We depend on each other for our survival, it’s a dangerous environment,” Marshbourne said. “And then we go through our training; we go in with the recognition that we are all here for the same purpose: the exploration and maintenance of this space station.”