NASA to Provide Briefing, Coverage of Spacewalks for Station Upgrades

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May 26, 2023, 10:52 ET

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station will conduct a pair of spacewalks Friday, June 9, and Thursday, June 15, to install two new solar arrays.

NASA will discuss the upcoming spacewalks during a news conference at 12 p.m. EDT Thursday, June 1. Live coverage of the news conference and spacewalks will air on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website.

NASA astronaut and Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Steve Bowen is pictured outside the International Space Station during his eighth career spacewalk, during which he routed cables and installed insulation to ready the orbital outpost for its next set of roll-out solar arrays.

News conference participants are:

Dina Contella, operations integration manager, International Space Station Program, NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston
Diane Dailey, spacewalk flight director, NASA Johnson
Megan Shutilka, spacewalk officer, NASA Johnson

U.S. media interested in participating in person must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than 11 a.m., Wednesday, May 31, by calling 281-483-5111 or emailing [email protected]. To ask questions, reporters must dial into the news conference no later than 11:45 a.m., June 1. Questions also may be submitted on social media using #AskNASA.

Each spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 9:15 a.m. and last about six-and-a-half hours with NASA coverage beginning at 7:45 a.m.

On June 9, NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg will exit the station's Quest airlock to install an upgraded IROSA (International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array) on the 1A power channel on the starboard truss of the station.

Bowen will serve as extravehicular activity (EVA) crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes. Hoburg will serve as extravehicular crew member 2 and will wear an unmarked suit. U.S. EVA 87 will be the ninth spacewalk for Bowen and the first for Hoburg.

On June 15, the same pair of astronauts will install an IROSA on the 1B power channel on the starboard truss. Assignments for U.S. EVA 88 will be determined at a later date.

The spacewalks will see the fifth and sixth IROSAs mounted to the existing station solar arrays. The new arrays are 60 feet long by 20 feet wide (18.2 meters by 6 meters) and will shade a little more than half of the original arrays, which are 112 feet long by 39 feet wide. The seventh and eighth IROSAs will be installed on future spacewalks. Each new IROSA will produce more than 20 kilowatts of electricity, and once all eight are installed, will enable a 30% increase in power production over the station's current arrays.

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Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

SOURCE NASA