Russian cosmonauts delay ISS spacewalk

The delay was announced by Russia's state space exploration company Roscosmos Monday.

In a statement on Telegram, Roscosmos said the extravehicular activity "was postponed, tentatively, to the beginning of May due to the need for a more detailed study of its tasks."

Cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev were originally scheduled to conduct their spacewalk on Tuesday.

When the EVA eventually does go ahead, Petelin and Prokopyev will be positioned outside while a third cosmonaut, Andrey Fedyaev, operates the European Robotic Arm to physically move the airlock.

The Rassvet research module and the airlock being transferred were originally brought to the station by the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2010.

Last week, Petelin and Prokopyev helped transfer a radiator from the Rassvet module to the Nauka. That spacewalk had to be delayed twice, once in November due to a faulty spacesuit pump and once in December due to a coolant leak from a Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station.

When the EVA goes ahead it will be the fourth ISS spacewalk this year and the 261st spacewalk for station maintenance.