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Mission accomplished: Astronauts complete historic spacewalk on Space Station

By  and 
FOX 35 Orlando
Space
Published October 29, 2026 7:26 AM EDT
Published October 29, 2026 7:26 AM EDT
article

The Brief

    • The International Space Station has a new solar array.
    • NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk installed the new solar array during a 7-hour spacewalk on Thursday.
    • The mission marked the 100th U.S. spacewalk without a space shuttle docked, and the 286th in support of the space station assembly.

Mission accomplished. Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station completed the 285th spacewalk at the ISS and the 100th to be conducted from the orbiting lab's Quest airlock without the space shuttle present, NASA said. 

What was the mission?

Timeline:

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk were tasked with installing and deploying the International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA), which helps provide additional power to the ISS.

The mission was completed in 7 hours and 11 minutes, NASA said.

More spacewalks planned

What's next:

Part of Thursday's mission, astronauts Menon and Kutryk also completed "get-ahead tasks" in advance of their Nov. 5 spacewalk. 

During that mission, the astronauts will install the eighth and final solar array to the 3B power channel. That spacewalk is expected to start early that morning. NASA coverage will begin at 6:45 a.m.

Why you should care:

After the Nov. 5 spacewalk, NASA said all solar arrays will have been installed, which will increase the available power to the Space Station by 30%. NASA said it will increase the station's generation ability from 160 kilowatts to 215 kilowatts.

The Source: This article was written with information released by NASA and from previous FOX 35 reporting. 

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