Miami.- NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams conducted a spacewalk on the International Space Station (ISS) this Wednesday, the first by the United States in over a year, with the aim of preparing for the installation of new deployable solar panels.
For about eight hours, both astronauts carried out key work for the future incorporation of these systems, which will provide additional energy to the orbital laboratory.
Meir and Williams, members of Expedition 74, went outside from the Quest airlock at 8:52 a.m. Eastern Time and headed to the left side of the main structure of the station.
There they assembled and installed a support that will allow, in a future mission, to place a new advanced solar panel of the iROSA type, more efficient than the current ones.
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Once deployed, this will be the seventh of the eight panels planned within the modernization program initiated in 2021.
Unlike traditional systems, these new panels do not require engines to open: the potential energy stored in their composite material structures allows them to fully deploy -reaching up to 19 meters in length- in approximately six minutes.
