Human Spaceflight

Menon and Kutryk prepare for solar-array spacewalk after go-ahead

NASA’s October 28 log records the management decision and completed final checks. The October 29 spacewalk remains planned.

29 October 2026 at 9:54 am ISTBy Mission Desk1 min read

Updated 29 October 2026 at 9:54 am IST: Follow-up: NASA’s October 28 log adds mission managers’ go-ahead, final procedure reviews, suit inspections and ground/robotics conferences to the October 27 cuff-checklist preparation previously reported. Installation remains planned.

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The International Space Station’s existing main and roll-out solar arrays above city lights in an archive photograph accompanying NASA’s October 26 operations log. This identifying image does not show the final checks or the planned October 29 installation. Credit: NASA.

NASA mission managers have given Anil Menon and Joshua Kutryk the go-ahead for their October 29, 2026, spacewalk to install a roll-out solar array on the International Space Station’s port-side truss, the agency’s October 28 operations log records.

The astronauts completed final procedure reviews and inspected their spacesuits’ life-support systems and communications equipment. NASA also records final conferences with ground specialists and robotics engineers, joined by crewmates Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney.

The management decision and completed checks advance the preparation in NASA’s October 27 log, covered in our previous report: Menon and Kutryk had printed cuff checklists and organised installation tools.

Menon is an Indian-origin NASA astronaut; his agency biography states that he was born and raised in Minneapolis to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants.

NASA plans an 8 a.m. EDT start on October 29, or 5:30 p.m. IST, for about six hours and 45 minutes. Menon is to carry the array to its worksite while riding the Canadarm2 robotic arm; Kutryk is to join him there to install it. The outing and power activation remain planned.

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