First spacewalk by NASA spacewalkers will be an instrumental step in installation of solar arrays

Chaos in the international space station started as the first in a series of end-of-the-year spacewalks that kicked off Tuesday morning. This was the first space walk for Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio on ISS. Let’s start at 9:14 a.m. ET with live coverage on the NASA website.

Cassada can be seen wearing a spacesuit with a red suit while Rubio is in an unmarked suit. This spacewalk includes the installation of a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the space station truss. The hardware that needed to be installed came to the ISS on November 9 through Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft.

Hardware will be instrumental for the installation of more roll-out solar arrays called iROSAs that will give the power boost to the ISS. Another pair of solar arrays would be installed during the rest of the spacewalk that will occur on November 28 and December 1.