Astronauts Install Final ISS Solar Array, Completing 30% Power Upgrade
Written by AI from starlust.org's report. Not checked by a person.
NASA's Anil Menon and CSA's Joshua Kutryk conducted a spacewalk on November 5 to install the eighth and last roll-out solar array on the ISS, boosting its power capacity by roughly 30%.
On November 5, 2026, NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk conducted a spacewalk beginning at 8:30 a.m. EST and lasting approximately seven hours to install the eighth and final ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) on the station's 3B power channel on the starboard side. Inside the station, NASA flight engineers Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney assisted the spacewalking pair, as they had done during the previous outing. This was Menon and Kutryk's second spacewalk together in a week; on October 29 they had installed the seventh array on the 2A electrical power channel on the port-side truss structure. The final pair of arrays arrived at the station last month aboard SpaceX's 35th commercial resupply services mission. Designed and manufactured by Redwire under a Boeing contract, the arrays launch rolled into a cylinder and unfurl on their own after deployment, reducing launch mass and volume. With all eight IROSAs now in place, the station's power generation rises from 160 kilowatts to roughly 215 kilowatts — a boost of about 30% — supporting life support systems, crew needs and hundreds of scientific investigations. The completion marks the end of an upgrade effort that traces its roots to 2017, when a technology demonstration first tested the arrays outside the station, with the first IROSA installation following in 2021.
