Cosmonauts work to fix stuck solar panels as they near end of almost 7-hour spacewalk

Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub are wrapping a nearly 7 hour long spacewalk at the International Space Station and are working to unfurl two solar panels that did not deploy properly on a mini radar system.

Two others deployed fully.

On its YouTube channel, NASA said once they "take a shot at fully deploying" the panels, the cosmonauts "will call it a day," gather their gear and return inside the ISS.

The 4 panels are part of a mini radar system payload adapter, NASA said.

The cosmonauts began their spacewalk at 1:55 p.m. EDT.

While on their spacewalk, the cosmonauts located the source of a radiator leak on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module, which leaked coolant on Oct. 9.

Additionally, NASA said the cosmonauts ventured "outside of the station's Poisk module to install a synthetic radar communications system and release a nanosatellite to test solar sail technology."

When the coolant leak was discovered, the station's crew closed shudders on multiple modules to prevent coolant from gathering on the station's windows.

The radiator that leaked is 13 years old and was transferred from the Rassvet module by ISS crew members in April.

Oct. 10 was the third time Russian equipment has experienced a leak in under a year.

In December, a Soyuz capsule that was intended to transport crew members back to Earth began leaking. The leak caused crew members to extend their stay aboard the ISS by several months.

In February, a Russian Progress MS-21 cargo ship sprang a leak while it was docked with the ISS.

NASA is providing continuous live coverage of the spacewalk.