View of the Earth from the ISS (American astronaut Shane Kimbrough captured a view of Italy)
Moscow. 12-th of September. INTERFAX.RU – European and Japanese astronauts on Sunday went into outer space from the International Space Station (ISS) to carry out installation work on its surface, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported.
The exit began at 08:20 US East Coast time ( 15:20 Moscow time ) from the Quest module. It is expected to last about 6.5 hours.
ESA astronauts Thomas Peske and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Akihiko Hoshide will install equipment on the P4 support segment of the ISS truss to mount a new pair of more powerful IROSA solar panels, which will be delivered to the station by the cargo spacecraft Cargo in 2022. Dragon of the American company SpaceX.
The first pair of IROSA panels were installed and deployed during three astronauts' trips into space vacuum in June. In total, three pairs of new panels will be added to the ISS.
The new panels will generate more electricity to keep the plant running. They are installed next to the eight old ones, which will increase the capacity of the station's power system to 215 kilowatts.
As noted by NASA, the current eight solar panels on the ISS are still functioning normally, but they are gradually degrading, since their service life was calculated for 15 years. The very first pair of panels was deployed at the station over 20 years ago.
Currently, the ISS crew consists of Roskosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai, who arrived at the ISS on April 9 on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, and also arrived at the station on the Crew Dragon-2 spacecraft on April 24 NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough; ESA astronaut Thomas Pesce; and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
