February 28, 2021
Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) conducted a spacewalk to begin the process of increasing the station’s electrical power generation output.
The spacewalk, US EVA-71, was conducted by NASA astronauts Kate Rubins and Victor Glover, who officially began the sojourn at 06:12 EST/11:12 UTC and completed it 7 hours 04 minutes later at 13:16 EST/18:16. UTC
Solar array background:
The ISS is equipped with eight Solar Array Wings (SAWs), each of which were designed to produce around 30 kilowatts (kW) of power, for a total of about 250kW across all eight arrays.
The oldest array, attached to the P6 truss, was launched in 2000 on the STS-97 mission of the Shuttle Endeavour, with the additional arrays launching in 2006, 2007, and 2009 onboard the STS-115 and STS-117 missions of Atlantis and the STS-119 mission of Discovery, respectively..