Two astronauts are due to step outside the International Space Station on Thursday, Nov. 5, to bolt on the eighth and final roll-out solar array of an upgrade that began in 2021. NASA says the full set of new arrays will lift the station’s available power by up to 30%, taking generation from about 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts. The array goes onto the 3B power channel.
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The job belongs to NASA’s Anil Menon and the Canadian Space Agency’s Joshua Kutryk, the same pair who completed the previous installation less than a week earlier. Kutryk was making his first spacewalk that day. The second outing is the one that finishes the power project.
The 7-hour Oct. 29 spacewalk that installed the seventh array
According to NASA’s station blog, Menon and Kutryk worked for 7 hours and 11 minutes, ending at 3:08 p.m. EDT, and installed the seventh roll-out array on the 2A power channel. Menon rode the Canadarm2 robotic arm to the port-side truss, about 260 miles above Earth, to begin the installation. The outing was the 100th U.S. spacewalk, Menon’s fourth and Kutryk’s first, and the 285th for station assembly, maintenance and upgrades.
The mission summary carried by ScienceDaily repeats those figures and records that the pair also finished tasks to prepare the ground for the next excursion. Menon, quoted by Space.com, called the landmark an incredible milestone for the American segment’s spacewalk programme. The same report says the array needed no motor: energy stored in its rolled-up carbon composite booms unfurled it, and it was fully extended about 12 minutes later.
Original wings built for 15 years, now past two decades
The station’s original solar wings were designed to last 15 years and were delivered between 2000 and 2009, so they have degraded after more than two decades in orbit. Spaceflight Now reports that each new array weighs about 750 pounds, measures about 10 feet rolled up and about 20 feet unfolded, and produces about 8 kilowatts. Each is mounted in front of one of the original wings rather than replacing it, which is why the agency describes the result as a boost to existing capacity and not a swap of hardware. The space station’s power channels are numbered, and the 3B channel is the last one waiting for an upgrade.
NASA operations integration manager Gaurang Patel said the roll-out arrays increase the station’s power generation capability by up to 30 percent, which matches the figure in the agency’s own summaries. The extra electricity is meant to carry the station through to its planned 2030 deorbit and to support the safe, controlled deorbit itself, according to NASA, which lists critical operations as the reason for the upgrade.
The first array went up in June 2021 and did not go smoothly. A spacesuit glitch and an array that refused to unfold cleanly meant Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet needed a second spacewalk to finish.
The leapfrog on the far end of the truss
The last array is the hardest to place, and the earlier outing included preparatory work for it. Spaceflight Now says it goes to the far end of the main truss, beyond the reach of the robotic arm, so the two astronauts will hand it from one set of foot restraints to another in a maneuver the team calls the leapfrog. Garrett Hehn, the spacewalk flight director, said the arm will move one direction at a time to make the work a little less tiring for the astronaut riding it. The restriction is a small procedural change, yet on a spacewalk lasting more than seven hours, as the first one did, it is the sort of detail that preserves stamina for the delicate cable connections at the end.
Hehn also pointed to the electrical hazard: crews cannot have sunlight falling on the arrays while they handle the live power cables, and the primary goal is to keep the crew safe. Coverage on NASA’s earlier preview of the first outing shows how the roles are divided: astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney operate Canadarm2 and monitor the spacewalkers, and mission controllers remotely activate the array once it is in place.
What to watch on Nov. 5
NASA plans live coverage beginning at 6:45 a.m. on its website, and the date is a schedule, not a guarantee. The earlier outing was approved by mission managers only a day beforehand, and the same go or no-go decision will precede the final one. Menon and Kutryk also carried out get-ahead tasks on Oct. 29 specifically to make the last installation go faster, so little preparation should remain on the day.
The open question is what the arrays deliver once all eight are live. The 215-kilowatt figure is a projection, and the agency’s summaries do not report a measured total yet, so the real gain will show up in the station’s power telemetry only after the eighth array is switched on by mission controllers. Completion would end the upgrade that has run since 2021 and leave the station with the power NASA says it needs for its remaining years, through the planned 2030 deorbit.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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