Overview
- Meir and Menon conducted US Spacewalk 96 on Thursday, Aug. 6, exiting the Quest airlock and working outside the station for about 6 hours 27 minutes.
- The crew assembled and bolted triangular brackets, routed power cabling and applied multi‑layer insulation on the station's 3B power channel to accept a future ISS Roll‑Out Solar Array (IROSA).
- This EVA was Anil Menon's first career spacewalk and Jessica Meir's sixth, with Meir serving as EV‑1 and Menon working from an articulating foot restraint on the truss.
- When installed, the remaining IROSA wings are expected to raise the station's electrical output by roughly 20%–30% by augmenting, not replacing, the aging legacy arrays.
- NASA has two more U.S. spacewalks scheduled for August, on Aug. 13 and Aug. 25, to replace a space‑to‑ground antenna and to connect power and data cables as part of ongoing maintenance and end‑of‑life planning for the ISS.