NASA and CSA astronauts install final ISS roll-out solar array on 101st spacewalk

This is a new development in a story we reported earlier: NASA and CSA set Nov. 5 spacewalk to complete ISS power upgrade.

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk put the eighth and final roll-out solar array in place on November 5, 2026, finishing the station’s multiyear power upgrade during the 101st U.S. spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

The spacewalk ran six hours and 59 minutes. The astronauts’ suits switched to battery power at 7:36 a.m. CT, and they exited the Quest airlock at 8:36 a.m. EST.

About one hour after the hatch opened, the team held roughly a 30-minute lead on the timeline. Ground teams then observed about half the expected current on the 3B power channel while the astronauts connected cables. Kutryk de-mated the P23-A cable and reported that the pins looked good and that inspection turned up no debris.

Drawing on Menon’s earlier spacewalk with ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, the pair removed four cables and caps before mating power connectors. During an orbital night pass, they connected cables P7 and P9 from the new array to the station’s 3B power channel. Flight directors extended the spacewalk from a planned 6.5 hours to an estimated seven hours so troubleshooting and deployment could fit the next night pass and following day pass.

Canadarm2 positioned Menon at the worksite while Kutryk translated hand-over-hand along truss tethers. Kutryk mounted himself on a station platform, took hold of the array, and Menon left his arm perch to leapfrog over him. Both grappled the array just beyond the robotic arm’s normal reach while Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney helped maneuver Menon toward the site. The deployed array extends to about 60 feet long and reached about 20 feet wide during installation.

At the 6-hour-10-minute mark, Stilwell said with six hours and ten minutes elapsed that the job would need about seven hours altogether and that Kutryk’s suit still had roughly 20 minutes of consumables left. The astronauts completed the work with supplies remaining. After re-pressurization, the airlock was brought past 9, 10, and 12 psi.

The work came after spacewalkers installed the seventh array on October 29, 2026, during the 100th U.S. spacewalk and the first Canadian EVA since 2019. The excursion marked the 286th spacewalk devoted to assembling and maintaining the station. Kutryk became the fifth Canadian Space Agency astronaut to carry out a spacewalk, joining Chris Hadfield, Steven MacLean, Dave Williams, and David Saint-Jacques. Together his two spacewalks add up to about 14 hours, behind Dave Williams’s Canadian record of three EVAs and 17 hours and 47 minutes.

Kutryk served as lead spacewalker EV1 on his second excursion, identified by red stripes on his suit, while Menon served as EV2 on his fifth spacewalk. Menon has taken part in three of the station’s IROSA spacewalks.

Sharing the station during the excursion were NASA astronauts Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov, Anna Kikina, and Sergey Teteryatnikov. Delaney, Kutryk, Teteryatnikov, and Watkins reached the station October 1, 2026, on SpaceX’s Crew-13 flight, while Dubrov, Kikina, and Menon got there in mid-July 2026 on a Russian Soyuz. Jenni Gibbons served as CAPCOM, and Stilwell took over spacewalk communications from Delaney and Watkins. Gibbons had provided ground intravehicular support for five previous IROSA spacewalks.

Station power generation now reaches about 215 kilowatts from 160 kilowatts after the eight arrays, an increase of roughly 30 percent. The last array contributes another 20 kilowatts through the 3B power channel.

The agency intends to keep the station running through 2030 as it moves toward commercial space stations. According to Space Foundation, the arrays add to the station’s original power system and help cover increasing electricity use by experiments, life-support gear, and other equipment. The foundation also says dependable infrastructure matters for commercial stations to keep doing microgravity research and to prepare technology for future Moon and Mars missions.

The roll-out arrays attach over the station’s decades-old original solar arrays, whose output is naturally falling as they age. The first station elements went up in 1998, and the outpost passed 26 years of continuous occupation on November 2, 2026.

Redwire Space constructed the arrays under a Boeing contract; Boeing serves as NASA’s prime contractor for station operations. They rode to the station in the unpressurized trunk of SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft. Redwire operates from Jacksonville, Florida.

Commercial station developers are adopting roll-out solar array technology like IROSA. Axiom Space plans to launch Axiom Station in 2028 and contracted Redwire to provide the arrays.

Kutryk is set to come back to Earth in March, while Menon is scheduled to return in April. NASA has not picked the spacewalkers for a January EVA to upgrade and repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Kutryk is staying on the station through January and could do those EVAs or work the intravehicular team.

Just before 3:30 p.m. EST, from inside the Quest airlock, Kutryk called it a good one and praised how the team answered challenges. Menon said they had a plan, changed it, and credited the ground teams for pivoting and getting the work done. Kutryk reported, “Clear of the tower itself.”

Most of the time, ground robotics crews run the arm instead of the astronauts aboard the station. Canada’s space agency takes part in this work well over 100 days a year, and crew members handle only the most important short radio exchanges, frequently while the station crew is asleep.

Côté-Bigras is preparing for the Northrop Grumman Cygnus berthing, set to launch no earlier than November 29, 2026, with Canadarm2. Kutryk watched the SpaceX CRS-35 Dragon dock autonomously on October 15, 2026.