Astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio floated outside the International Space Stationon Saturday, installed a third set of roll-out solar array blankets, part of an ongoing power system upgrade, and isolated damaged circuits in one of the lab’s original arrays.
The seven-hour, 5-minute excursion went off without a hitch, increasing the station’s power by 20 kilowatts in one of the smoothest spacewalks in recent memory. Flight Director Zeb Scoville congratulated the astronauts, saying “this is the kind of day that makes you want to clap your hands.”
And he did just that, leading the mission control team in a round of applause, adding “let there be light! Great job, come on in!”
NASA TV
Floating in the Quest airlock compartment, Cassada and Rubio switched their spacesuits to battery power at 7:16 a.m. EST, officially kicking off the 256th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance and the 11th so far this year.
The goal of the excursion was to install one of two ISS Roll-Out Solar Array blankets — IROSAs — that were carried to the space station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship last month.
The station is equipped with four huge solar wings, two on each end of a truss stretching the length of a football field. The arrays rotate like paddle wheels as the lab flies through space to maximize power generation.
Each of the four wings is made up of two sets of solar cells extending in opposite directions from a central hub. The eight sets of blankets deliver electricity to eight main circuits, or power channels, during daylight to operate the lab’s systems and to recharge batteries. The batteries provide power during orbital darkness.
NASA TV
The first set of original-equipment blankets, located on the left end of the station’s power truss, has been in operation for more than 20 years. Subsequent wings were added in 2006, 2007 and 2009. All of them have suffered degradation from years in the space environment and they do not generate as much power as they did when they were new.
In a $103 million upgrade, NASA is installing the smaller but more-powerful IROSA blankets to augment the output of the lab’s eight older, original-equipment blankets.
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