On Thursday morning, two International Space Station astronauts will continue installing new solar arrays to the floating laboratory, stated NASA.
What You Need To Know
- The new solar arrays will provide more power to the ISS
- They were onboard the CRS-28 mission of a SpaceX launch
- đź”»Scroll down to watch the spacewalkđź”»
The approximate six-hour spacewalk began at around 8:55 a.m. ET, as astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg will be installing the International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA).
This will be Bowen’s 10th spacewalk and will be Hoburg’s second. They will install the fifth and sixth IROSAs, which will be mounted to the existing solar arrays on the ISS.
The new solar arrays are 60 feet long (18.2 meters) by 20 feet wide (6 meters) and will cover more than half of the existing solar arrays, which are 112 feet long (34 meters) by 39 feet wide (11.9 meters), stated NASA.
These will be installed on the 1B power channel on the ISS’s starboard truss.
It will actually be the second time for them to do this, as both Bowen and Hoburg installed the upgraded IROSAs on June 9, to the 1A power channel on the starboard truss of the ISS.
Back in 2021, NASA astronauts installed two of the IROSAs. In total, there are six IROSAs that will provide an increase in power to the existing arrays on the ISS, stated NASA.
“Each new IROSA will produce more than 20 kilowatts of electricity, and once all are installed, will enable a 30% increase in power production over the station’s current arrays,” NASA explained.
The latest IROSAs were sent to the ISS during SpaceX’s launch of the Commercial Resupply Service mission 28 (CRS-28) earlier this month.
Watch the spacewalk
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