Expedition 75 crew members are preparing for the second and final spacewalk in a series aimed at upgrading the International Space Station's power generation system, NASA reported. Flight engineers Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency and Anil Menon of NASA spent Tuesday organizing tools and reviewing procedures for the roughly seven-hour excursion, scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. EST on Thursday.

The pair will install the eighth and final roll-out solar array on the station's starboard truss structure. According to NASA, the installation completes a process begun in June 2021 that raises the station's power generating capacity from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts. NASA flight engineers Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney will assist the spacewalkers in and out of their suits, monitor them and operate the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Live coverage is set to start at 7 a.m. Thursday.

The crew also conducted microgravity research and transferred cargo in and out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that docked to the Harmony module on Oct. 15. Dragon is expected to return to Earth in mid-November carrying completed science experiments and station hardware. In the Roscosmos segment, commander Pyotr Dubrov set up Earth observation gear, while flight engineers Sergey Teteryatnikov and Anna Kikina carried out health monitoring, water transfer and ventilation maintenance tasks.