MOSCOW, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Two Russian cosmonauts at the International Space Station (ISS) took their first spacewalk of this year on Thursday, the Mission Control Center outside Moscow said.

    Astronauts Oleg Kotov and Maxim Surayev moved through an air lock on the ISS to start the spacewalk at 01:05 p.m. Moscow time (1005 GMT) and spent five hours and 40 minutes in open space, said Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin.

    The ISS crew connected cables between the Poisk and Zvezda modules, install docking targets and Kurs aerials and attach additional handrails to exit hatches, Lyndin said.

    The Poisk research module was launched in last November. Lyndin said that redocking the ship will allow the engineers to more efficiently adjust the station's orbit later this month.

    The astronauts also dismantled the Biorisk-MSN container from the outside of the Pirs docking module during the mission.

    The container has been in position for 30 months and will be sent back to Earth in the spring to allow scientists to study the effects of space flight on microorganisms as part of research into the problems of ecological safety and planetary quarantine.

    The spacewalk was made in the new Russian Orlan-MK space suits that were unveiled last summer.

    This is a debut spacewalk for Surayev. Though Kotov made two spacewalks totaling 12 hours in 2007, it's also the first time he worked outside the space station in the new spacesuit.

    Other astronauts aboard the ISS, Soichi Noguchi of Japan and NASA's Jeffrey Williams and Timothy Creamer, supported the spacewalk from inside the space station.