Two astronauts installed the final roll-out solar array on the International Space Station on Thursday, closing a five-year upgrade that lifts the station’s power by about 30 percent.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk deployed the eighth and final array during a spacewalk that lasted six hours and 59 minutes. The array unrolled to its full 63-foot length at about 3:05 p.m. EST.
The job did not run smoothly. About four and a half hours in, Mission Control reported the new array was delivering only about half the current engineers expected. The crew worked through the snag, and ground controllers confirmed good readings before clearing the deployment. “We got it done!” Menon said at the end of the spacewalk.
The eight arrays raise the station’s power from about 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts, according to NASA. The extra power will support research and operations through the station’s planned retirement and controlled deorbit in 2030.
The upgrade began in February 2021 and took 18 spacewalks to complete. The first array unrolled in June 2021, and the final pair launched to the station on October 13 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The spacewalk was the 286th devoted to station assembly and maintenance.
NASA’s next planned US spacewalks are set for early January, to upgrade the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a cosmic-ray detector mounted on the station’s truss.
Source: Spaceflight Now
