After seven hours and twenty-one minutes, NASA astronaut Nicole Mann and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata ended their spacewalk at 3:35 p.m. EST.
Both the majority of the work to install a similar mounting platform for a set of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) for the 1A power channel and the leftover spacewalk work for a platform on which a set of iROSAs for the station’s 1B power channel will be installed later this year were finished by Mann and Wakata. Plans to bolt the last strut for the second platform were postponed until a later spacewalk because of time restrictions. Operations of the space station are unaffected.
The installation is one of several spacewalks that will add new iROSAs to the International Space Station’s power channels. Two more iROSAs will be affixed to the platforms set up during this spacewalk once the current four have been deployed.
It was the first spacewalk of 2023 and the first spacewalk for both astronauts. It was the 258th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, modifications, and maintenance.
Currently, Mann and Wakata are in the middle of a six-month science mission to expand understanding and showcase cutting-edge technologies for the next human and robotic exploration missions, including lunar trips under NASA’s Artemis program.
