Astronauts: This Sunday (20), astronauts Shane Kimbrough, from NASA, and Thomas Pesquet, from the European Space Agency (ESA), installed two of the six new sets of solar panels on the International Space Station (ISS). The space walk, which lasted about 6:28 am, was completed around 3:10 pm (Brasilia time).
New ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) solar arrays have been deployed on the left (port) side of the station’s backbone structure (P6), NASA said. On Wednesday (16), the astronauts performed another spacewalk, but had technical delays at the time and partially installed the equipment.
This is the fourth time that Pesquet has performed a spacewalk, while Kimbrough has performed his eighth.
Next scheduled walk
“Kimbrough and Pesquet successfully deployed the solar panel, fixed it in place and connected the cables to the station’s power supply to complete the deployment,” the US agency said in a statement.
According to NASA, the second update of the solar panel is planned for energy channel 4B (P6). This other spacewalk is tentatively scheduled for next Friday (25).
