NASA is two spacewalks away from completing a major, years-long upgrade to the International Space Station that will power the orbiting lab through to its planned decommissioning in 2030.

More than five years after the upgrade work first began in earnest, NASA astronaut Anil Menon, 43, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk, 44, are scheduled to depart the station’s Quest airlock at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) Thursday to install and unfurl the seventh of eight International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or IROSAs.

The compact, high-efficiency panels are designed to make up for power lost as the station’s original solar wings have degraded over more than two decades in orbit. Spaceflight Now will carry live coverage of the spacewalk starting at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 UTC).

If all goes to plan, Menon and Kutryk will venture back into the vacuum of space Nov. 5 to install the eighth and final array, capping an upgrade campaign that began in 2021. NASA says the eight IROSA arrays will raise the station’s available power from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts, supporting critical operations through the outpost’s final years, including its “safe and controlled deorbit” after it is retired in 2030.

“Overall, these roll-out arrays increase our power generation capability up to 30 percent,” Gaurang Patel, operations integration manager for NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, said during an Oct. 20 briefing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Thursday’s outing, which marks the 285th spacewalk devoted to station assembly, maintenance and upgrades, is planned to last about six hours and 45 minutes.

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