American astronauts left the space station again in open space

^{Photo: NASA}
American astronauts have returned to the International Space Station (ISS) after several hours of work in outer space, NASA reports.

Station commander Sunita Williams and flight engineer Butch Wilmore entered the vacuum of space through the Quest gateway at 07:43. They carried out technical work for 5.5 hours. During this time, the astronauts dismantled the radio antenna assembly and searched for microbes in the station's hull.

On January 16, these astronauts also went into outer space for several hours to service astrophysical equipment.

The International Space Station currently has a crew of seven people - Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Alexander Gorbunov, and NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Donald Pettit, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams.

It should be recalled that American astronauts Tracy Dyson and Matthew Dominick aboard the ISS were supposed to go into space on June 13, but the procedure was canceled due to problems with their spacesuits. On June 24, the astronauts went into open space for 31 minutes, and Dyson was forced to return to the station due to a water leak in the cooling circuit of his spacesuit.