The unfurling of the solar wings on the International Space Station was a success. Astronauts aboard the ISS and the Discovery space shuttle carried out a very nerve-stretching procedure that went as planned. Both solar wings destined to increase the ISS capacity to sustain its electric power went out smoothly and nothing went wrong. 

 

With the addition of these final two solar arrays, the ISS reached its full power capability which is of about 120 kilowatts. This means that the ISS can now host six crew members instead of three. The huge solar wings (240ft or 73m) were carried aboard the space shuttle and installed by astronauts using the robotic arms of both spacecrafts. 

 

The addition of these final solar wings doubles the amount of energy that the ISS can allocate to scientific experiments aboard the station. 

 

The astronauts aboard the spacecrafts expressed their joy through “a shout of triumph” after the operation went well, said ISS commander Mike Fincke. 

 

"It's just really amazing," said Mr. Fincke about the tricky operation which involved maneuvering the 31,000-pound (13,950 kg) girder containing the solar power panels and then unfurling them. 

 

Astronaut John Phillips was the one who pushed the button to unfurl the first solar wing. After five minutes, the wing was halfway open and that was when NASA told him to stop the process only to resume the unfurling about an hour later until completion. The space agency wanted to unfurl the solar wings this way in order to decrease the risk of jamming the arrays. The partially opened wing was left that way so it could soak up some sunlight. With the second solar wing, the process went almost identical. The only difference was that it had a slight crinkle near its bottom, but it flattened when the array unfurled completely. 

 

"Great work, guys," Mission Control told the astronauts. "We've got a whole bunch of happy people down here,"

 

This was the primary objective of the STS-119 mission, to install the two solar wings so that the ISS could have maximum electrical power.  The set of two solar wings is the 11th and final piece of the ISS backbone which had a total building cost of 2 billion and the length of a football field. 

 

The space shuttle Discovery also brought with it a new member aboard the ISS, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will replace Sandy Magnus for the next couple of months. The space shuttle also brought a new distiller for the urine recycling system of the space station because the last distiller NASA sent 200 miles into the sky malfunctioned several times.