Spacewalk 101 Is Under Way: Astronauts Install the ISS's Eighth and Final Solar Array

The last piece of the International Space Station's power upgrade is being bolted on today. NASA astronaut Anil Menon and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk began a spacewalk at 8:36 a.m. EST on Thursday, November 5, outside the station's Quest airlock, NASA said in its space station blog. The walk had been scheduled to begin at about 8:30 a.m. EST and to last more than six and a half hours.

This is U.S. spacewalk 101 and the 286th spacewalk supporting space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades. It follows directly from the work WorldEye covered on October 30, when the same pair installed the seventh array in U.S. spacewalk 100 — today they finish the job on the opposite side of the station.

Menon and Kutryk are installing and deploying the eighth and final International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array, known as an IROSA, on the 3B power channel of the station, NASA said. When it is deployed, the power augmentation upgrades are complete.

NASA said the eighth array will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit at the end of the station's life. USA TODAY, reporting NASA's figures, put the overall gain at about 30 percent — the eight new arrays are intended to lift generating capacity from about 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts.

Kutryk is spacewalk crew member 1, wearing the suit with red stripes, and Menon is crew member 2, wearing the unmarked suit, NASA said. This is Menon's fifth spacewalk and Kutryk's second — the second coming just a week after his first, on October 29.

That pairing is deliberate continuity: the same two astronauts who installed the seventh array on the 2A channel now close out the programme on 3B, with the station's crew supporting them from inside and the Canadarm2 operation that USA TODAY noted is handled by colleagues aboard.

NASA is streaming the spacewalk live. Its pre-walk post said coverage was already running as the astronauts suited up, and its walk-begins post pointed viewers to NASA's live page for the platforms carrying it. USA TODAY listed NASA's free NASA+ service and streams on Amazon Prime, discovery+, X and YouTube, with coverage that began at 7 a.m. ET.

A spacewalk is slow television by design — long transits, bolt by bolt work, and checks between every step — but the deployment of a roll-out array is the visual payoff: a compact roll unfurling into a full wing in front of the station's original panels.

While Menon and Kutryk work on the truss, the station itself keeps circling Earth roughly every 90 minutes. WorldEye's space station tracker shows where the ISS is right now, and the guide to watching the ISS live explains how to catch a visible pass from the ground after dark.

By the end of today, if the walk goes to plan, a multi-year upgrade will be finished in a single shift: eight new arrays, a station generating up to about 30 percent more power than before the programme, and no ninth array left on the manifest.