Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas
Pesquet conducted three spacewalks in June to
install new solar panels on the International
Space Station (ISS). The six panels are a new ‘roll
out’ design, and are wrapped up to make them
easier to transport. Once installed, the arrays
took 10 minutes to unfurl.
The panels replaced several of the
ISS’s original solar arrays, which
had been in operation since
December 2000. After
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was beginning to drop, but
these new arrays returned
the station to its original
power output.
Replacement solar
panels for ISS
August 2021 BBC Sky at Night Magazine 13