Successful space walk for Thomas Pesquet, for whom it "never becomes a routine"

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet concluded his third spacewalk in just over a week on Friday, with the successful installation of a new solar panel on the International Space Station.

This was the fifth outing from the French orbital station, which now counts 33 hours spent in the vacuum of space, NASA said.

No matter how many times you leave the Space Station, it NEVER becomes a routine, had tweeted Thomas Pesquet a few hours before rushing out of the decompression chamber.

As with the two previous missions, this mission was carried out in the company of American astronaut Shane Kimbrough. It lasted 6 hours and 45 minutes.

It is common for them to follow one another so quickly (we optimize the preparation of the suits), on the other hand it is rarer to do the same with the same person, had explained Thomas Pesquet on Instagram.

He and Shane Kimbrough previously completed two side-by-side spacewalks in 2017.

Third mission added

The two teammates activated the internal battery of their suit at 11:52 GMT, which marked the official start of their mission, which ended at 6:37 p.m. GMT.

Arrived on board the ISS at the end of April, they were initially supposed to carry out only two spacewalks before their return to Earth, but this third mission had to be added after a series of setbacks accumulated during the first spacewalk.

A little over a week ago, the two mechanics were unable to complete the installation of a first solar panel as planned. During their second outing on Sunday, they had to finish deploying it, and started to put a second one.

It was this second panel that they finished plugging in and unrolling on Friday.

Called iROSA, these 19-meter-long solar panels are expected to increase the ISS's power generation capabilities, each producing more than 20 kilowatts of electricity.

Six of them should eventually be landed on the Space Station. It was equipped so far with eight larger panels, the first of which was installed in 2000, but which have gradually been degraded by emissions from ships coming and going to the Station, and micro-meteorites.

Like the old ones, the new solar panels will have a lifespan of about 15 years.