Washington, March 16: Two US astronauts have prepared the International Space Station (ISS) for the installation of a new solar array (iROSA) boosting its electrical generating power in a nearly seven hour spacewalk, NASA announced in an official blog report. “NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Raja Chari concluded their spacewalk at 3:06 pm EDT after 6 hours and 54 minutes in preparation for upcoming solar array installation,” the space agency said on Tuesday.
The astronauts completed their major objectives in the spacewalk to prepare the space station for upcoming solar array upgrades by assembling and installing modification kits. They built a support bracket onto which a future ISS roll out solar array will be mounted. So far, two of six iROSAs have been deployed on the ISS, NASA said. It was the 247th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, upgrades and maintenance, and was the first in Chari’s career and the second for Barron. Both astronauts are serving on a six-month science mission on the ISS, according to NASA. UNI/SPUTNIK
