Canadian astronaut prepares for first spacewalk to install station's final solar arrays

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk is preparing for his first spacewalk, part of a two-mission effort to install the International Space Station's final pair of solar arrays. Kutryk and NASA astronaut Anil Menon will conduct the spacewalks on Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, which will mark the first time a Canadian has ventured outside the station since 2019. The work will complete an upgrade to the station's power system that will increase its power generation capability by up to 30 per cent. The first spacewalk, scheduled to last about six hours and 45 minutes, will see the pair install a roll-out solar array on the port side of the station's main truss.

"Canada's part in the two spacewalks goes well beyond lending the Canadarm2 robotic arm," the CSA said in an Oct. 20 update. The agency's flight controllers and engineers helped plan the spacewalks and choreograph the arm's movements. The Robotics Mission Control Centre in Longueuil, Que., will track Canadarm2 in real time during the excursions. CSA astronaut Jenni Gibbons will serve as capsule communicator, relaying instructions between mission control in Houston and the crew, a role she also performed during the 2021 spacewalks that installed the first of the new arrays.

Kutryk spent the past week getting ready, filling spacesuit cooling garments with water, organizing tools, inspecting tethers and cleaning helmets. He also tried a suit on for a fit check, a necessary step to account for changes like spine stretching in weightlessness. NASA's Luke Delaney will command the Canadarm2 during the spacewalks, and he and NASA's Jessica Watkins trained on the arm and will help Kutryk and Menon in and out of their suits. Kutryk arrived at the station on Oct. 1 for a six-month stay.

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NASA will stream the first spacewalk, designated U.S. spacewalk 100, on NASA+ starting at 6:30 a.m. EDT on Oct. 29, with Kutryk and Menon scheduled to exit the Quest airlock at 8 a.m. Coverage of the second spacewalk on Nov. 5 will begin at 6:45 a.m. EST, for an 8:10 a.m. start. The second outing will add the eighth and final array on the station's starboard side, finishing an upgrade that will increase the station's power generation capability up to 30 per cent, according to NASA's operations integration manager.

While Kutryk prepared for the spacewalk, his crewmates conducted a variety of science and technology experiments. In the station's BioFabrication Facility, a bioprinter in the European lab, Delaney, Watkins and Menon took turns printing blood vessels from the cells of patients with a rare genetic disorder that causes rapid aging. NASA says studying these cells in weightlessness could point to new therapies. Delaney also processed tumour samples as part of a study into how cancer cells grow and respond to treatment without gravity.

Menon handled algae and tobacco-cell samples for a study of how crops might one day grow on the moon or Mars. Kutryk also contributed to science, swapping samples in a research furnace that levitates materials with an electric field and heats them with lasers. In the station's Russian segment, cosmonauts wore acoustic sensors to track their breathing and finished a study of plasma crystals. The cargo Dragon spacecraft that docked on Oct. 15 is scheduled to undock in mid-November once the crew finishes unpacking it.

With files from SpaceQ