Prior to the discovery of the mysterious hole on the exterior of the Soyuz, Kononenko and Prokopyev had to use a pair of telescoping booms to cross approximately 30m to reach the capsule, which took them around four hours to do.

To expose the external hull, the astronauts had to remove thick insulation on its exterior, with Kononenko needing to cut away a 25cm swatch of thermal insulation and debris shield. Both spacewalkers had to use a knife and long cutters, which resulted in bits of shredded silver insulation floating away.

Mission Control repeatedly urged the spacewalkers to take a few minutes’ rest, in their bid to collect samples of the black epoxy sealant protruding from the hole, just 2.5mm across.

Kononenko used a pair of forceps and a swab to collect samples of the dark epoxy. The residue, stowed inside a bag, was brought back inside the space station and will be returned to Earth on the Soyuz for analysis.

Taking the length of time of the spacewalk into consideration, flight controllers decided to forgo installing a replacement insulation blanket over the spacecraft’s exposed skin. This is because it is the orbital compartment which is purposely jettisoned and destroyed during re-entry of the Soyuz descent module into Earth’s atmosphere.

The Soyuz is scheduled to depart the orbiting lab on 19 December, with Prokopyev, American Serena Auñón-Chancellor and German Alexander Gerst, the station’s current skipper.

In August, flight controllers monitoring the space station’s systems from the ground first noticed a small loss of cabin pressure aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The then-Expedition 56 crew, including Prokopyev, Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Serena Auñón-Chancellor of Nasa, were able to trace the leak back to a 2mm hole in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Prior to the discovery of the mysterious hole on the exterior of the Soyuz, Kononenko and Prokopyev had to use a pair of telescoping booms to cross approximately 30m to reach the capsule, which took them around four hours to do.

To expose the external hull, the astronauts had to remove thick insulation on its exterior, with Kononenko needing to cut away a 25cm swatch of thermal insulation and debris shield. Both spacewalkers had to use a knife and long cutters, which resulted in bits of shredded silver insulation floating away.

Mission Control repeatedly urged the spacewalkers to take a few minutes’ rest, in their bid to collect samples of the black epoxy sealant protruding from the hole, just 2.5mm across.

Kononenko used a pair of forceps and a swab to collect samples of the dark epoxy. The residue, stowed inside a bag, was brought back inside the space station and will be returned to Earth on the Soyuz for analysis.

Taking the length of time of the spacewalk into consideration, flight controllers decided to forgo installing a replacement insulation blanket over the spacecraft’s exposed skin. This is because it is the orbital compartment which is purposely jettisoned and destroyed during re-entry of the Soyuz descent module into Earth’s atmosphere.

The Soyuz is scheduled to depart the orbiting lab on 19 December, with Prokopyev, American Serena Auñón-Chancellor and German Alexander Gerst, the station’s current skipper.

In August, flight controllers monitoring the space station’s systems from the ground first noticed a small loss of cabin pressure aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The then-Expedition 56 crew, including Prokopyev, Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Serena Auñón-Chancellor of Nasa, were able to trace the leak back to a 2mm hole in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz spacecraft.