Overview
- NASA released striking photos from the Oct. 29 spacewalk that show Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk during US Spacewalk 100, a roughly 7 hour, 11 minute EVA in which they installed the seventh roll-out array on the 2A power channel.
- Menon and Kutryk are scheduled to perform US Spacewalk 101 on Nov. 5 to install the eighth and final International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the 3B channel in a roughly seven-hour operation.
- Each iROSA is a lighter, tape-measure style panel that unfolds without motors, produces more than 20 kilowatts in sunlight, and is roughly half the size of the station’s original arrays.
- Robotic support from Canadarm2 and Canadian flight controllers will move and position the folded array for attachment, and mission plans call for Menon to ride the arm while carrying the panel to its installation site.
- When the final array is in place the station’s generation capacity will rise from about 160 kilowatts to roughly 215 kilowatts, finishing a power-upgrade program that began in 2021 and aimed to keep the ISS powered through its remaining service life.