NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk began a spacewalk on October 29 at 7:57 a.m. EDT to install the seventh of eight ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA) on the International Space Station.
Menon, designated EV1 and identifiable by red stripes on his suit, performed his fourth spacewalk since arriving at the station in July aboard a Russian Soyuz craft. Kutryk, designated EV2, became the fifth Canadian astronaut to conduct a spacewalk.
The two astronauts made their way down the station's truss to locate the iROSA pallet. Using pistol grip tools, they released bolts holding the array to its storage pallet. Menon, positioned at the end of the Canadarm-2 robotic arm, held the new solar array after removal and began aligning it with the bracket for power channel 2A.
By three hours and 29 minutes into the excursion, Menon and Kutryk had mated three of four major power connectors for the iROSA. Mission Control commentator Rob Navias reported the team was running ahead of schedule with no issues encountered. The array measures approximately 60 feet in length when fully unrolled.
The spacewalk was expected to last about seven hours.