Today, the crew aboard the Discovery space shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS) will attempt to install the two solar wings that will complete the space station’s electrical system and enable it to reach full power supply.

 

The first spacewalk of mission STS-119 will be carried out today and, hopefully, the astronauts will successfully install the $300 million solar wings brought from home aboard the space shuttle. This girder is the 11th and final piece of the ISS backbone. The backbone of the ISS had a total building cost of 2 billion and, when the final piece is installed will, it have the length of a football field. 

 

The main objective of this mission, NASA’s 125th shuttle mission, is to install the two solar wings, a move that will boost the ISS’s capability to host twice as many crew members, from thee to six. 

 

On Wednesday, astronauts John Phillips and Sandra Magnus used the robotic arms of both the Discovery and the ISS to maneuver the 31,000-pound (13,950 kg) girder containing the solar power panels, which took more than 10 years to build. 

 

The first part of the mission, maneuvering the girder, was “a highly successful operation," said Kwatsi Alibaruho, NASA’s lead space station flight director in Houston. Mr. Alibaruho said the space agency was concerned about how the ISS will handle and maneuver the heavy girder, but it all went well. The process of moving the solar power panels into place so that spacewalkers could install them today took about eight hours.