Houston, we have a podcast.

Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 211, station solar arrays.

I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight.

In case you're unfamiliar, the International Space Station's power systems are in the process of getting an upgrade.

Over the past few years, the nickel hydrogen batteries that once stored energy gathered

from the station's basketball court-sized solar arrays

were replaced with lithium-ion batteries,

and most recently astronauts installed brand new solar

arrays to augment the station's power supply, meaning both the original and the new arrays

will collect solar power for the same power channel.

So why do we need these power upgrades?

Why are the arrays being augmented?

How has technology improved?

All these questions and more being answered by resident expert Mike Salopec,

the International Space Station Power Augmentation Project Manager on this episode.

So without further delay, let's get right into it.

Enjoy. T-minus second, then county.

Mark.

A-

On-sc commit lights, sir, correct?

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