NASA and French astronauts take 6.5 hour spacewalk on ISS maintenance mission

Astronauts Step Outside ISS For Maintenance

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot stepped outside the International Space Station on Tuesday for a six-and-a-half-hour maintenance spacewalk to upgrade key systems and support safe spacecraft navigation.

Footage shows Meir and Adenot preparing inside the station before opening the hatch and working outside the ISS, securing equipment and carrying out maintenance against views of Earth below as Mission Control in Houston monitors the operation.

The astronauts also installed data-relay cables, preparing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer for future maintenance and replacing a high-definition camera.

Meir Completes Seventh Career Spacewalk

The outing is Meir’s seventh career spacewalk, placing her third among NASA women, behind Peggy Whitson and Suni Williams. Meir and Christina Koch completed the first all-female spacewalk in 2019.

Before becoming an astronaut, Meir studied how animals survive extreme environments, from emperor penguins in Antarctica to high-flying bar-headed geese. NASA selected her as an astronaut in 2013, and she now commands the SpaceX Crew-12 mission.

Tuesday marks Adenot’s third spacewalk, after the French astronaut joined the European Astronaut Corps in 2022 and arrived at the ISS this year for her first mission, following a career as a helicopter and experimental test pilot in the French Air and Space Force, where she logged around 3,000 flight hours across 22 helicopter types.

Crews Work To Keep ISS Operating Safely

The mission comes just a week after Adenot completed another six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk with NASA astronaut Anil Menon to repair a key communications system.

Travelling at around 28,000 kilometres per hour, the ISS circles Earth roughly every 90 minutes as crews work to keep the more than two-decade-old station operating safely.

Article by Viory.