Astronaut Joshua Kutryk, of Canada, waves as he leaves the Operations and Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Oct. 1, 2026. AP Photo/John Raoux
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk said he was overwhelmed with emotion looking at the Earth during a seven-hour spacewalk on Thursday.
“I tried to focus really hard on not looking up at the high Earth,” he said. “Your mind doesn’t know what to do with that image,” he said.
“It’s exciting,” he added.
Kutryk and NASA astronaut Anil Menon successfully installed seven of eight new solar panels on the International Space Station during the spacewalk. Kutryk became the fifth Canadian to perform such a feat.
Speaking to media as he floated inside the space station on Friday morning, Kutryk said the experience changed him. He said seeing the blue planet from the outside made him feel “very small” and “almost insignificant.”
“(I feel) like I want to make every decision I make in my life going forward, and just try to be a better person, the best person I can,” said Kutryk.
He described seeing the Earth while hovering in the vacuum of space as “very confusing” and “a sensory overload.”
He added that he was stunned by the beauty and fragility of the planet. He said that he could see his home province of Alberta from space, and he has posted several photos of what Canada looks like from the space station on social media.
“I do think that we come back to Earth with a changed perspective,” he said.
The astronaut described the experience as disorienting. He and Menon had to work in both the darkness of space and through blinding sunlight, on top of the distracting view of the Earth. But he said the years of training paid off and the work went off without a hitch.
Kutryk is on his first mission in space and his trip outside the space station is expected to be his first of two spacewalks. Kutryk and Menon are scheduled to install the eighth solar panel during their next spacewalk.
Before Kutryk, the last Canadian to perform a spacewalk was David Saint-Jacques in 2019.
Saint-Jacques led the news conference at the space agency’s headquarters in Longueuil, Que., with Eleanor Olszewski, the minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development Canada.
Saint-Jacques said Kutryk is “a real role model for Canadian youth.”
As an Albertan, Olszewski added that she felt “tremendous pride” seeing Kutryk make history with his spacewalk.
Kutryk and his crew’s mission is crucial, Saint-Jacques said, as the station is nearly 30 years old and its original solar panels have lost efficiency. According to the Canadian Space Agency, the new panels, paired with previously installed arrays, will help increase power generation capacity on the station by up to 30 per cent.
Mathieu Caron, director of the Canadian Space Agency’s astronauts, life sciences, and space medicine directorate, said the job couldn’t have been done without Canada’s decades-long contribution to space exploration.
Menon rode the Canadarm 2 robotic arm to perform the maintenance work. The spacewalkers also received support from the robotics team in Longueuil, and Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons gave the duo step-by-step instructions from Houston.
“We’re all incredibly proud,” said Caron.
While he tried to focus on the task at hand, Kutryk says he will make sure to take in the view during his second spacewalk next week.
