Miami.- NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon concluded a six-hour and 27-minute spacewalk this Thursday, during which they prepared the power channel to which the new solar arrays of the International Space Station (ISS) will be connected.
Meir and Menon exited the space laboratory around 8:35 a.m. U.S. Eastern time (12:35 GMT), loaded with the necessary material for the panel assembly, and returned inside at 3:00 p.m. (19:00 GMT), meeting all primary objectives, NASA reported.
The work focused on power channel 3B, to which the IROSA deployable solar arrays will be attached. They will be the seventh of the eight planned as part of the modernization program initiated in 2021, and their arrival is scheduled for late 2026.
The modernization program
Those panels will provide additional power to support the station’s critical operations, including its safe and controlled deorbiting.
Unlike traditional systems, the panels do not need motors to deploy: the energy stored in their composite material structures opens them completely, reaching 19 meters in length, in about six minutes.
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This is Meir’s sixth spacewalk, who last March installed a similar support during an outing outside the space station, and the first for Menon, who has only been in space for 22 days.
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Likewise, the US space agency explained that this was the 281st spacewalk carried out for the assembly, maintenance, and improvement of the orbital laboratory.
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NASA also has two other maintenance spacewalks scheduled for August 13 and 25, although it has not yet announced which astronauts will perform them.
