Seventh solar array advances ISS upgrade, with one still to come

Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and NASA astronaut Anil Menon installed the International Space Station’s seventh roll-out solar array on 29 October, completing a spacewalk lasting seven hours and 11 minutes. The installation advances the station’s power upgrade, but it is not the completion of the entire project. [1]

NASA’s completion report places its projected increase of up to 30% in available power after all eight arrays are installed. The final array, assigned to the station’s 3B power channel, is planned for 5 November. Thursday’s work installed the seventh on channel 2A; the full-project forecast should not be read as a measurement of what that single installation has already delivered. [1]

Spaceflight Now’s operational account explains why deployment involved more than opening a panel. Electrical connections were timed for orbital darkness, when the arrays were not generating power. The astronauts completed three of four connections before daylight returned, unfurled the array, then made the last connection during the next period of darkness. [2]

The new equipment also supplements rather than wholly replaces the original solar wings. Spaceflight Now reports that exposed portions of the older arrays continue generating electricity alongside the new panels. That distinction connects the spacewalk to the broader upgrade: crews are adding generation capacity to an existing system in stages. The next planned milestone is the eighth installation; the reviewed reports do not supply a measured post-installation total for the seven-array configuration. [1][2]