[imagesource: NASA]

Last night, if you were tuned into NASA TV, you would have had to opportunity to watch Expedition 64 flight engineers Kate Rubins and Victor Glover – both NASA astronauts – exit the International Space Station (ISS) on a spacewalk to install modification kits for new solar arrays.

A solar array is a collection of solar panels that generate electricity as a system. When an installer talks about solar arrays, they’re typically describing the solar panels themselves and how they are situated. Sunlight hits the panels in an array and produces direct current electricity.

The ISS, which has been floating around in orbit since 1998, has to be upgraded and maintained constantly.

According to Space.com, it’s now ready for new solar panels, as the old ones which have been providing power since 2000 aren’t generating as much as they used to.

The new ones will be smaller but contracted using more advanced technology.

This, the first in a series of spacewalks, was to install the support structures using a solar arrays modification kit and several tools, which came in a huge 2,5-metre long bag.

“Unfortunately, this mod kit is very large, and it doesn’t fit out the door in its current state,” said spacewalk officer Art Thomason in a news conference held Wednesday (Feb. 24). “So we have to bring it out in pieces, kind of like assembling furniture.”

The following, released the day before the spacewalk, explains what they were heading out to do:

The bag makes the spacewalk more dangerous.

“Even though we don’t have gravity to deal with in space, we still have inertia and mass. The crew knows to be careful with this,” [Thomason] said.

“As they’re translating [moving] out there, they’re going to take it easy and make sure when they’re turning corners, and things like that, they help guide the bag because this is a larger thing than what they’re used to.”

If that bag heads off in a direction other than the one that Rubins and Glover need it to, it could take an astronaut with it.

Thankfully, everything went to plan.

Here are Rubins and Glover in action:

The difficulty of doing anything in a spacesuit, and in space, cannot be overstated.

European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer explains how they prepare and train for a spacewalk:

If you’re keen to watch more live spacewalks, you can find out when the next one is happening here.

Just keep in mind that they can take upwards of six hours, so unless you’re a diehard space fan, tune in in the last 30 minutes to watch the astronauts complete their mission.

[source:space]