Space Station Solar Arrays

A close-up picture of a Zvezda Service Module array at the Space Station, reflecting bright rays of the sun, creating an artistic scene.   Image © NASA

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The solar arrays photographed on April 3 by one of the Expedition 35 crew members, as part of an External Survey from International Space Station windows that was recently added to the crew’s task list.

Space Station Lookout

The view outside of the window of the International Space Station

The view outside of the window of the International Space StationImages © Chris Hadfield (CSA); Annotation assistance: Vincent Berseth

This is the view outside of the window of the International Space Station.

Expedition 34 flight engineer Chris Hadfield, looking out one of windows of Japan‘s Kibo Research Module on February 26.

In the distance lies the darkness of outer space and the blueness of planet Earth. Large ISS objects include long solar panels that stretch diagonally from the upper left and the cylindrical airlock of the Pressurized Module that occupies the lower right.

Numerous ports and platforms of the space station are visible and labeled on an annotated companion image. Of particular note is what looks to be a washer – dryer pair toward the image left, which are really NASA‘s HREP (near) and JAXA‘s MCE (far) research platforms. The gold foil covered experiment in the rear of HREP is the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System (RAIDS) that monitors atmospheric airglow, while MCE includes the Global Lightning and Sprite Measurements (JEM-GLIMS) instrument that monitors atmospheric electrical discharges.

sources NASA,   APOD