Two Russian astronauts have started a space walk that would last for at least five hours and 55 minutes on Monday, said the mission control center outside Moscow.

A Russian astronaut wearing Russia's advanced Orlan-MK spacesuits works outside the docking module at the International Space Station (ISS), on Nov. 15, 2010. Two Russian astronauts have started a space walk that would last for at least five hours and 55 minutes on Monday, said the mission control center outside Moscow. [Xinhua]

At 05:55 p.m. Moscow time (1455 GMT), the two astronauts opened the hatches of the Pirs docking module at the International Space Station (ISS), and started working wearing Russia's advanced Orlan-MK spacesuits, said Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the mission control.

The space walk started some 25 minutes later than scheduled due to a longer-than-planned equalization of pressure in the airlock, news agencies reported.

This was the fifth space walk for 51-year-old Fyodor Yurchikhin but a maiden one for Oleg Skripochka, aged 41. Yurchikhin already completed a space walk in July this year with another Russian astronaut Mikhail Kornienko.

The major mission of the spacewalk was to install a multipurpose working station on the Zvezda service module for later experiments.