NASA astronauts complete spacewalk to upgrade space station power systems

NASA astronauts Anil Menon and Jessica Meir completed a six-hour, 27-minute spacewalk Friday to upgrade International Space Station power systems, installing hardware for future solar arrays. The spacewalk, the 281st supporting the station, marked Meir’s sixth spacewalk and Menon’s first. They mounted equipment on the 3B power channel and routed cabling for roll-out solar arrays, called IROSAs. Since 2021, six IROSAs have been deployed; two more are expected later this year. This was the first of three August spacewalks, with antenna replacement and power/data maintenance to follow.