NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk began a spacewalk at 7:57 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday to install and deploy the International Space Station’s seventh roll‑out solar array, Xinhua reported. The EVA, expected to last more than six and a half hours, is scheduled to position the new array on the station’s 2A electrical power channel.
The SpaceX-allocated solar array will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including the station’s future controlled deorbit, NASA said in a blog post on Thursday. The spacewalk marks Menon’s fourth and Kutryk’s first spacewalk, and is the 285th spacewalk supporting ISS assembly, maintenance, and upgrades, the agency noted.
NASA’s statement emphasized that the additional power will enhance reliability of power supply for the ISS’s crew, experiments, and systems that will be needed as the station approaches its decommissioning schedule. The new array, once fully deployed, will be the longest-side‑to‑side solar array attached to the ISS to date, according to the agency.
Both astronauts conducted the EVA in accordance with ISS Extravehicular Activity protocols, wearing extravehicular suits and tethered to the station’s exterior. The EVA was monitored from Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
