Science.-First spacewalk on the ISS without Americans or Russians

MADRID, 14 (EUROPA PRESS)

ESA astronauts Thomas Pesquet (left) and JAXA’s Aki Hoshide (right) have prepared another outer section of the International Space Station for their solar panel upgrade.

The new solar panels, called IROSA (ISS Roll-Out Solar Array), are gradually being installed on top of existing panels to improve the power system of the International Space Station.

Pesquet and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough prepared and installed two IROSA solar panels on three spacewalks in June. The arrays were taken from their storage area outside the Space Station and passed from spacewalker to spacewalker at the workplace. There, the rolled arrays were secured, unfolded, connected, and then unfolded.

In a new spacewalk this September 12, Hoshide and Pesquet prepared the P4 truss for their IROSA installation. This is the same area where Pesquet and Kimbrough installed two IROSAs but closer to the main body of the Space Station, in an area called channel 4A. Only a new solar panel will be installed here, in a later spacewalk.

FIRST SPACE WALK WITHOUT AMERICANS OR RUSSIANS

While Sunday’s extravehicular activity or EVA was already the fourth spacewalk during Pesquet’s Alpha mission, it was the first with Hoshide and the first time that a pair of spacewalkers on the Station did not include an American or Russian astronaut, it reports. the ESA.

They both had a good time preparing channel 4A for the next IROSA and were able to complete a second task to replace a faulty floating potential measurement unit. This unit measures the difference between conductive structures on the Space Station and atmospheric plasma.

Pesquet and Hoshide completed their spacewalk in six hours and 54 minutes, giving the French astronaut the ESA record for the longest time spent on the spacewalk.