A new roll-out solar array is generating power at the International Space Station after NASA flight engineer Anil Menon and CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk installed it during a spacewalk on Thursday, NASA reported. The pair spent seven hours and 11 minutes outside the station attaching the array to the port-side truss and releasing its tension bolts, allowing it to unfurl over about ten minutes.

A second roll-out array is planned for Thursday, Nov. 5, on the starboard side of the truss. NASA said the pair will install the eighth and final array, part of a process that began in June 2021, raising the station's power-generating capacity from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts.

According to the agency, Menon worked on a space botany study in the Kibo laboratory module examining how microgravity affects cell division in green algae and cultured tobacco cells, with results that may support food-crop production on the Moon and Mars. Kutryk used the European Enhanced Exploration Exercise Device's cycle in the Columbus module, which is being tested for keeping crews fit on long-duration flights. NASA flight engineer Luke Delaney inoculated thale cress samples after exposure to a fungal pathogen and stowed them in an artificial-gravity incubator, research that may improve crop disease resistance. Jessica Watkins serviced research hardware, and Roscosmos crew members Pyotr Dubrov, Sergey Teteryatnikov and Anna Kikina worked on semiconductor crystal, virtual reality balance and super-intelligence tool studies.