ISS: the eighth and final roll-out solar array is installed
· BehindLines newsroom
The electrical upgrade of the International Space Station has reached its end. According to NASA's station blog, astronauts Anil Menon (NASA) and Joshua Kutryk (Canadian Space Agency) ended their spacewalk on November 5 at 3:35 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, after installing and deploying the eighth and final roll-out solar array, linked to the 3B power channel.
A spacewalk of about seven hours
The same blog says the spacewalk began at 8:36 a.m.; the array went onto the station's starboard truss, and the blog describes the job as completing the power generation upgrades. Space.com gives a duration of 6 hours 59 minutes (NASA states none on the page consulted), quotes Menon saying "We got it done!" at the end of the spacewalk, and says this last array concludes a project that began in June 2021.
The seventh array, a week earlier
The same two astronauts had installed the seventh array on October 29, on the 2A channel, during a spacewalk of 7 hours and 11 minutes. NASA counted it as the 100th US spacewalk, the fourth for Menon and the first for Kutryk. That day they also completed preparatory tasks for the November 5 outing.
What this is meant to change
NASA had said the eight arrays together should raise available power by up to 30%, taking station generation from 160 to about 215 kilowatts. Space.com repeats the roughly 30% increase. This is an expectation announced before the spacewalk: the November 5 blog gives no measured power figure.
The agency also explained that the arrays would help power critical operations, including the station's controlled deorbit at the end of its life. For ground teams, the next step is to confirm that all eight arrays deliver the expected electricity, something the sources consulted do not yet document.