'It’s always sunny in space': NASA's Anil Menon, CSA's Joshua Kutryk feature in stunning images from U.S. spacewalk 100

Joshua Kutryk would do well to frame this one. A stunning image from the spacewalk conducted outside the International Space Station (ISS) last Thursday, October 29, features the Canadian Space Agency astronaut floating in space in NASA’s bulky extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) with a particularly bright Earth in the background. NASA said that the ISS was about 267 miles (430 kilometers) above the South Atlantic Ocean when the photo was taken. And it isn’t even the only visual from that day that’s worth taking a second look at.

This spacewalk, which happened to be the 100th U.S. spacewalk conducted from the ISS's Quest airlock without a space shuttle docked to the station, saw Kutryk and his partner, NASA's Anil Menon, install the seventh International Space Station roll-out solar array (IROSA) outside the space station. Menon shared a video of the newly installed array on Sunday, November 1, in which it was seen rotating against the backdrop of a star-studded sky as viewed from the Japanese module of the ISS.

Earlier on Friday, October 30, the NASA astronaut shared some stills from the spacewalk as well. He wrote, "It’s always sunny in space. Yesterday, we completed USOS EVA 100 and installed a new solar array on the space station. Over 25 years operating in the harshest environment and using the sun’s energy to do it!" The carousel featured him riding the robotic Canadarm2, the Sun shining over Earth, along with a classic astronaut selfie. Kutryk, meanwhile, shared his favorite moments from the spacewalk, which was his first ever, across multiple posts on X. "To observe our globe whirling by, from atop a perch in the vacuum of space, is to experience beauty and awe and wonder (and vulnerability, too) like never before," he captioned one of his posts.

The Expedition 75 members aboard the ISS are currently gearing up for the next spacewalk scheduled for Thursday, November 5, which will see Kutryk and Menon venture out again to install the eighth and final ISS roll-out solar array on the 3B power channel on the starboard side of the truss structure. The installation will be the culmination of almost a decade's worth of work and will boost the ISS's overall power generation capacity by around 30%, from 160 kilowatts to about 215 kilowatts. The seven-hour spacewalk, which will commence at 8:30 am EST, will be the 286th spacewalk for station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades and, of course, the 101st U.S. spacewalk. The live coverage of the event will be streamed by NASA, starting at 7 a.m. on various channels like X, Discovery+, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and NASA+.

To prepare for the spacewalk on Thursday, Menon and Kutryk spent Tuesday organizing their gear and going through spacewalk procedures. The duo began their shift in the Quest airlock, preparing spacewalking tools and examining the tethers used to secure crew members to the orbiting laboratory, after which they reviewed the schedule for the spacewalk. NASA flight engineers Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney also went over Thursday’s procedures. They will help Kutryk and Menon suit up and remove their suits afterward, monitor the pair outside, and operate the Canadarm2.

Menon, Watkins, and Delaney also cast their votes on Tuesday, November 3, from their makeshift voting booths inside the ISS. In doing so, the trio kept alive the tradition that began in 1997, when NASA astronaut David Wolf became the first American to vote from space while aboard Russia's Mir space station.

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