Joshua Kutryk to complete ISS solar power upgrade with two spacewalks

CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk is scheduled to conduct two spacewalks outside the International Space Station on Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, 2026, to install the final pair of new solar arrays. The Oct.

29 EVA will install the seventh roll-out solar array, and the Nov. 5 EVA will install the eighth and final one, which NASA has designated as U.S. spacewalk 100 and U.S. spacewalk 101.

The station has been adding new solar arrays since 2021, and the two EVAs will complete that effort. Installing all eight new arrays will raise the station’s power generation capacity from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts, an increase of up to 30 percent. NASA says the upgraded power will support research, operations and the safe, controlled deorbit of the station, which is currently planned for 2030.

Each new array yields more than 20 kilowatts and is rated to last more than 10 years, and the final two together account for more than 40 kilowatts of rated capacity. Redwire Space built the two wings Kutryk will install, which are the fourth and final pair for the station, and the astronauts will mount the seventh on the 2A power channel.

An IROSA is a thin, flexible panel mounted in front of one of the station’s original solar wings and partly covering it. The roll-out array technology debuted in 2017 on SpaceX’s CRS-11 cargo mission and uses modification kits at non-standard interfaces.

SpaceX’s 35th cargo mission delivered the IROSA wings to the station. Dragon C211 separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage about 10 minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 6:33 a.m. EDT on Oct. 13 and began a two-day trip.

It docked at the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 15 with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and science, and should remain docked for about a month.

Anil Menon will join Kutryk on both spacewalks; Menon spacewalked on Aug. 6, 2026, to prepare the starboard truss, which is part of the long girder that carries the station’s solar wings. Canadarm2, the Canadian-built robotic arm, will serve as a platform for one of the spacewalkers during the EVAs. The two astronauts will leave through the station’s Quest airlock, according to NASA’s advisory, and neither agency has published start times for the spacewalks yet.

Kutryk arrived at the station on Oct. 1, 2026, aboard SpaceX Crew-13, his first spaceflight, and is expected to remain for about six months. He is the fifth CSA astronaut to spacewalk outside the station and the first since David Saint-Jacques’s walk on April 8, 2019, which was the first by a CSA astronaut in 12 years. His Crew-13 crewmates are NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.

The CSA says this mission is the first by a CSA astronaut under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The station’s Canadian connection runs deeper: Chris Hadfield helped attach Canadarm2 to the station on Canada’s first spacewalk in April 2001, and David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain spent about six and a half hours outside on April 8, 2019, setting up a backup power path for the arm.

NASA will preview both spacewalks at a news conference from Johnson Space Center in Houston at 2 p.m. EDT on Oct. 20. Gaurang Patel, the operations integration manager for NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, and Garrett Hehn, the spacewalk flight director, are scheduled to speak, and the briefing will set out timelines for the Oct.

29 and Nov. 5 spacewalks.

Media representatives must contact the JSC newsroom by Oct. 19 at 3:00 p.m. ET to join the briefing by phone, and NASA will livestream it. CSA experts will make themselves available during the briefing to answer questions about Canada’s participation in the ISS program, and those wishing to arrange an interview may contact the CSA Media Relations Office.

Kutryk, 44 years old, grew up on an Alberta cattle farm a long way from the space station. Docking procedures after launch took about two hours, and after docking he and his crewmates emerged from a hatch and were greeted by the seven station crew members.

Kutryk said, “I don’t really believe it yet,” after someone told him the crew was in orbit, and he said the crew felt like “some of the luckiest people on Earth.” He also said it’s great to have Canada represented on the station again. His wife is expecting their third child while Kutryk serves his six-month mission aboard the station.