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ISS crew completes spacewalk

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MISSION CONTROL (Moscow region), February 22 (RIA Novosti) - Two members of the 14th crew of the International Space Station have completed a spacewalk, mission control said Thursday.

ISS commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin spent about six hours in outer space.

"The astronauts have completed their mission. Most importantly, they managed to loosen and fold the antenna of the Progress M-58 cargo spacecraft and now the Progress may be safely undocked from the station," a mission control spokesman told RIA Novosti.

The astronauts also performed a number of routine tasks in preparation for the next U.S. shuttle mission to the station, scheduled for March 15.

It is the fourth spacewalk conducted by the crew since the beginning of the year. During the previous spacewalk February 8, Lopez-Alegria and another U.S. crewmember, Sunita Williams, removed and jettisoned two large shrouds and installed attachments for cargo carriers.

The current crew of the world's sole orbital station comprises U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, who arrived at the station September 20, and U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams, who replaced the European Space Agency's German astronaut Thomas Reiter in December 2006, and who will remain on the ISS for another several months.

The next ISS expedition will comprise two Russian astronauts, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, and U.S. millionaire Charles Simonyi, who is set to fly to the ISS as a space tourist.

A Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft with the 15th ISS crew will be launched April 7, 2007 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, the Russian Space Agency said February 20

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