Sophie Adenot becomes first French woman to walk in space as unfinished ISS antenna job requires second spacewalk
Sophie Adenot’s first spacewalk was supposed to be about replacing an antenna. Instead, the 18 August outing left the French astronaut with two milestones to carry back inside the International Space Station: becoming the first French woman to walk in space, and an unfinished repair that will require another trip outside. Adenot and Nasa astronaut Anil Menon spent much of the six-and-a-half-hour operation working through the practical difficulties of replacing the station’s space-to-ground antenna. The job involved removing and handling equipment, working around electrical cables and preparing the connections needed for the replacement unit. Time ran out before the antenna could be installed and brought online. Nasa has now scheduled Adenot and Menon to return outside on 25 August, when they will resume the work using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. The second spacewalk will put the antenna back at the centre of an outing that began with a historic first.
Sophie Adenot becomes first French woman to perform a spacewalk
Adenot and Menon began the work on 18 August as part of the International Space Station’s continuing maintenance programme. Their assignment involved replacing a space-to-ground antenna mounted on the station’s Z1 truss, an area above the Unity module that houses equipment used in the station’s communications network.For Adenot, the outing had significance beyond the hardware. She became the first French woman to perform a spacewalk, joining the relatively small group of astronauts who have worked outside the station in the vacuum of space. Yet the milestone came during a mission that did not go exactly to plan. The astronauts made progress on the antenna replacement but ran short of time before the new unit could be fully installed and connected.
Sophie Adenot and Anil Menon scheduled for second ISS spacewalk
Instead, the work involved the sort of fiddly, time-consuming task that can consume a spacewalk: dealing with electrical connections and the equipment surrounding them while wearing a pressurised spacesuit. Nasa said the astronauts did not have enough time to complete the antenna installation during the first outing.That means the unfinished section of the job is now being carried into another spacewalk. According to Nasa, Adenot and Menon are scheduled to return outside on Tuesday, 25 August. Menon will use the Canadarm2 robotic arm to reach a spare antenna that Adenot will release from an external platform, after which the two astronauts will install it on the Z1 truss and make the electrical and data connections required to bring it into operation.
25 August ISS spacewalk to focus on antenna replacement
The antenna remains the priority for the 25 August spacewalk. Nasa expects the excursion to begin at about 8.35 a.m. EDT and last roughly six and a half hours, with live coverage starting at 7 a.m. The pair will have to complete the remaining installation and establish the connections needed for high-speed communication between the station and mission control.If they finish with enough time, there is another maintenance task waiting. Nasa has listed replacement of a retroreflector on the forward port of the Harmony module as a possible ‘get-ahead’ task. The device helps provide navigation information for visiting spacecraft. It is not the main reason for the spacewalk, but completing it would reduce some of the maintenance still ahead for the station crew.
Nasa considers fourth ISS spacewalk for 1 September maintenance
The antenna repair is also linked to a wider sequence of station maintenance. Nasa is considering a fourth spacewalk on 1 September to connect power channel cables and data relay systems. Whether that outing goes ahead depends partly on what happens during the 25 August operation.Nasa said the early September spacewalk could instead be used to carry out the retroreflector replacement if that task cannot be completed next week. Inside the station, the crew has been preparing for the next attempt through procedure reviews and robotics planning. Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway are helping Adenot and Menon with their spacesuits, while Hathaway is expected to operate Canadarm2 during the operation.The station crew has continued its other work in between the preparations. Meir has been involved in a study looking at relaxation, stress and sleep during long-duration missions, while Hathaway photographed growing colloidal crystal samples for a space manufacturing experiment. Adenot and Menon also carried out routine maintenance on life-support and communications equipment. For now, though, the unfinished antenna remains the immediate priority.The astronauts will return on 25 August to finish the installation that could not be completed during their historic first attempt. Adenot’s first spacewalk is therefore likely to be remembered for two things at once: the milestone she achieved outside the station and the very practical problem that kept the work from being finished the first time.
