Cosmonauts upgrade space station parking spot

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The commander and lead engineer aboard the International Space Station completed a six-hour spacewalk on Tuesday to prepare another parking spot for when the outpost's crew doubles to six.

Cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko installed a docking target, inspected an antenna connection and handled other tasks so that future spaceships can automatically berth at the orbital outpost.

"Everybody on the ground is very happy with a job well done," Russia's Mission Control told the cosmonauts.

As early as next May, the number of residents aboard the station will expand from three to six.

Two three-seater Russian Soyuz capsules will need to be anchored at the station at all times in case the crew has to make an emergency return to Earth. The Russian berthing slips also are used by Europe's unmanned cargo ships, the first of which arrived in April.

The docking target is to be used next year when Russia launches a small combination docking compartment/research laboratory to the station.

The module replaces the canceled Russian Docking Compartment 2 and is nearly identical to the station's Pirs docking compartment, which Russia delivered in 2001 and which was designed to last five years.

The docking compartment, slated for launch on an unmanned Progress rocket as early as August 2009, will give the station four berthing slips for Russian and European vehicles.

"It's part of what we thought was necessary" as the station builds up to support six crewmembers, said NASA's station program manager Mike Suffredini.

The spacewalk was the second in less than a week for Volkov and Kononenko, who have been aboard the station since April.

Last Thursday, the cosmonauts removed an explosive bolt from their Soyuz capsule in an effort to help engineers trouble-shoot why two previous Soyuz spacecraft landed hard and off-course. The bolt is one of 10 aboard the Soyuz that fire to separate the crew compartment from a instrumentation and propulsion module before atmospheric re-entry.

During last week's spacewalk, Volkov removed one of the redundant bolts and handed it over to Kononenko, who sealed in a blast-proof steel canister. It will fly home with the crew in October.

(Editing by Tom Brown)