Canadian Astronaut Spacewalk Lights Up the ISS Power Upgrade

The Canadian astronaut spacewalk finally happened on Thursday morning, when Joshua Kutryk stepped outside the International Space Station and became the first Canadian to do so in more than seven years. Kutryk and NASA astronaut Anil Menon began working outside the airlock at 7:57 a.m. EDT, according to NASA, with a job that sounds simple and is not: install a roll-out solar array to boost the station's power.

Who is out there, and what are they doing?

Kutryk is a Canadian Space Agency astronaut and a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force. This is his first spacewalk ever. Menon has done three already and also serves as a colonel in the U.S. Space Force, according to Space.com.

The pair are installing an ISS Roll-Out Solar Array, called an iROSA, on the station's 2A electrical power channel. The outing was planned to last roughly six hours and forty-five minutes, and it is the first of two spacewalks for the duo. The second is expected no sooner than November fifth.

Why solar arrays matter

The station's original arrays are decades old and slowly degrading. Each iROSA sits on top of an older array, like a fresh battery strapped onto a tired one. The first one rolled out in 2021, and Thursday's job covers the seventh of eight planned units.

Once all eight are running, the station's power supply should rise from about one hundred sixty kilowatts to about two hundred fifteen kilowatts. That is a boost of roughly thirty percent, which matters for experiments, life support and the future of the aging lab.

The choreography is wild

Each folded array is about ten feet long and weighs seven hundred fifty pounds on Earth. NASA spacewalk flight director Garrett Hehn told reporters the arrays are "a lot to handle," according to Space.com. The agency designed a new series of moves that rotate the array around its center of mass rather than around the astronaut, which should be less tiring for Menon.

Here is the sequence. The astronauts slide the array off its transport rail. Menon then rides a platform on Canadarm2, the Canadian-built robotic arm, while astronauts Luke Delaney and Jessica Watkins steer it from inside the station. Kutryk moves hand over hand to the install site to meet him.

Once bolted down, the array unrolls from ten feet to about twenty feet in roughly ten minutes. Hehn compared it to a snap bracelet, with magnets along the side that keep it rolling out steadily. The crew then has to connect power cables when that part of the station is in darkness, since nobody wants to handle hot cables in sunlight.

A big moment for Canada

This is Canada's first spacewalk since David Saint-Jacques went out on April eighth, 2019. Kutryk's flight was delayed two years because he was first assigned to Boeing's Starliner, which needed more testing. He launched on October first aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Canadian fingerprints are all over the day. Canadarm2 is doing the heavy lifting, and CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons is the capsule communicator for both spacewalks. She also worked as a capcom on Artemis II in April and is slated to lead capcom duties for Artemis III.

The timing also lines up with fresh political attention. Canada has announced a bipartisan space caucus, named Jeremy Hansen a space advisor to the prime minister, and promised its first space strategy since 2019. Defence has also pledged money for launch pad access at spaceports in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, per Space.com. More on this beat lives in our science section and our Canada coverage.

What to watch next

The second spacewalk, no sooner than November fifth, repeats the install on the starboard side. The last array will go in farther out, beyond Canadarm2's reach, so the crew plans a "leapfrog" maneuver to get there. Menon will move the platform between spots on the truss while Kutryk waits in place.

For a generation raised on livestreams, this one is worth catching. A Canadian astronaut hanging off the station while a Canadian robotic arm carries a power upgrade is the kind of flex that actually matters for the lab's future.