Watch live as first UAE astronaut conducts spacewalk for ISS power upgrades

NASA astronaut Steve Bowen and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi are set to exit the International Space Station's Quest airlock to begin a spacewalk to continue the installation of hardware to support future power system upgrades.

The spacewalk will begin at about 9:15 a.m. EDT and last approximately six-and-a-half-hours. During the spacewalk, Bowen and Alneyadi will prepare for the future installation of upgraded solar arrays on the starboard side of the station's truss and then retrieve S-band antenna equipment and bring it inside the space station for refurbishment.

Today's spacewalk is the first for any UAE astronaut and the eighth for Bowen.

Live coverage of the spacewalk is currently underway on NASA TV, the NASA app, the space station blog and the agency's website.

LIVE: It's spacewalk time. Watch with us as Steve Bowen of @NASA_Astronauts and @Astro_Alneyadi work on upgrades to the @Space_Station's power system. https://t.co/UPSQgV6ojs

— NASA (@NASA) April 28, 2023

This spacewalk is part of a series aimed at augmenting the station's power channels with new International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs). To date, four of these new arrays have already been installed, and two more will be mounted onto the installed platforms in future spacewalks after they arrive on SpaceX's 28th commercial resupply services mission for NASA later this year.

Update 1

Bowen and Alneyadi began the spacewalk at 9:11 a.m. EDT.

Update 2

The duo concluded their spacewalk at 4:12 p.m. EDT after 7 hours and 1 minute.

Update 3

Two Roscosmos cosmonauts will venture outside the Poisk airlock Wednesday, May 3, to conduct a spacewalk to relocate hardware from the Rassvet module to the new Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Expedition 69 cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will exit the station at 4:05 pm ET.

NASA TV coverage of this excursion will begin at 3:30 p.m.