<p>The Expedition 17 crew of the International Space Station worked Tuesday towards completing preparations for a pair of spacewalks. They donned their spacesuits for a dry run and inspected hatch seals. <br /><br />Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko put on their Orlan spacesuits in a full dress rehearsal of Thursday’s spacewalk. The two cosmonauts tested their ability to move around and the status of the suits’ communication gear and other systems. <br /><br />Meanwhile, Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff inspected the hatch seals of the station’s labs and checked out the communication equipment in the docked Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft. During the spacewalks, the station’s hatches will be sealed and Chamitoff will remain in the Soyuz as a contingency in the unlikely event that the spacewalkers are unable to repressurize the Pirs docking compartment and must use the Soyuz to move to another docking port to re-enter the station. <br /><br />Volkov and Kononenko are set to exit the station Thursday at about 2:20 p.m. EDT. During the 6-hour excursion, they will inspect the Soyuz, checking the attachment of the return module to the propulsion module. They also will retrieve a suspect pyrotechnic bolt for inspection by engineers on the ground. <br /><br />If time permits, the spacewalkers will install a docking target on the Zvezda service module. Otherwise, they will complete that task on a second spacewalk on July 15. On that spacewalk they also will retrieve an experiment from the station’s exterior and install another. <br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>