NASA has announced a news conference to preview U.S. spacewalks 100 and 101, two planned excursions intended to complete solar-array installation and power augmentation work on the International Space Station. The briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 20, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The agency will reportedly use the occasion to explain that the station, a permanently inhabited laboratory orbiting Earth at considerable expense and velocity, would benefit from additional electricity. A chart is expected to depict the relationship between sunlight and solar arrays with several arrows, each approved through the appropriate internal process.
Officials will then provide a disciplined overview of astronauts leaving the station to perform complex exterior work in space, followed by a slide titled “What Happens Next,” which will note that more work happens next. Any questions about how a person calmly installs infrastructure while attached to an orbital outpost will be placed in a supplementary appendix, behind a diagram of the Sun.
NASA said it will stream the news conference through multiple platforms, including its live-streaming page, allowing the public to observe the federal government carefully preparing to send people outside the planet’s atmosphere to improve the electrical situation.
The briefing is expected to conclude once everyone agrees that the International Space Station’s power needs are being addressed through the traditional sequence: sunlight, engineering, spacewalks, and a meeting about the spacewalks.
