NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk installed the eighth and final International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array, or IROSA, during a spacewalk on November 5. Kutryk, identified by the call sign EV1 and red stripes on his spacesuit, led the spacewalk. Menon used the call sign EV2. The work began at approximately 8:36 a.m. ET when their spacesuits transitioned to battery power.
Kutryk made his second spacewalk, having installed the seventh IROSA the previous week. Menon conducted his fifth spacewalk since arriving at the space station in July aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The IROSA installation effort started in June 2021 and will boost the space station's power generating capacity from 160 kilowatts to approximately 215 kilowatts. Each IROSA provides an additional 20 kilowatts of power. The arrays were delivered to the station in the unpressurized trunk section of SpaceX Cargo Dragon vehicles.
Redwire Space, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, manufactured the IROSA arrays. The ROSA technology is also being used on other missions including NASA's SR-1 Freedom, Axiom Space's Axiom Station, and Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft.
The spacewalk lasted approximately seven hours. By the one-hour mark, Menon and Kutryk were running about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.