The pair were scheduled to begin their roughly 6.5-hour extravehicular activity at around 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 GMT), with NASA coverage starting at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT). NASA officials described the antenna as a critical communications link the agency uses to transmit data, enabling high-speed communications between the Mission Control Center in Houston and the space station.
This marked the second spacewalk for Menon, whose first, conducted with NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, occurred on August 6. During that EVA, a carbon dioxide sensor on Menon’s spacesuit gave an unexpected data reading. The sensor returned to normal after Menon doffed the suit, but NASA took extra time to confirm there was no serious issue. As a result, the agency pushed his second spacewalk from the originally planned August 13 to August 18.
Today’s excursion was the 282nd spacewalk in the history of the ISS. Menon, who reached orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on July 14, served as crewmember 1 on the EVA. Adenot, a member of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission that reached the orbiting lab in February, served as crewmember 2. She is part of ESA’s 2022 astronaut class.
Adenot is not the first French person overall to conduct an EVA. That distinction belongs to Jean-Loup Chrétien, who performed a spacewalk outside the then-Soviet Union’s Mir space station in 1988. Other male French astronauts, including Philippe Perrin and Thomas Pesquet, later spacewalked outside the ISS. Pesquet also became the first French person to command an ISS mission, taking the reins in October 2021.
Historic firsts in human spaceflight still matter for public engagement with the space program, and this one carries particular resonance in France and across Europe. Adenot’s spacewalk also comes at a moment when the role of the astronaut is actively being debated, with Artemis II having recently set a record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth. Even in an era of commercial crew and billionaire space tourism, the ISS continues to produce genuine human firsts.
Attention now turns to the completion of the antenna replacement and the restoration of the communications link between Houston and the station.
