Overview
- Meir and Menon finished a six‑hour, 27‑minute extravehicular activity that began on Thursday to assemble and install mounting hardware on the ISS 3B (Starboard 6) power channel.
- The pair routed cabling and covered struts with multi‑layer insulation so a future roll‑out solar array, called an IROSA, can be attached to that power channel.
- The outing was U.S. Spacewalk 96, the 281st EVA supporting the ISS, and it was Menon’s first spacewalk while Meir logged her sixth.
- Two more U.S. spacewalks are scheduled for August to replace a space‑to‑ground communications antenna and to connect power and data cables plus a docking navigation aid.
- IROSA wings supplement the station’s aging legacy arrays to boost power by roughly 20–30 percent when paired with them, which helps sustain experiments, life support and long‑range plans for a controlled deorbit.