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International Space Station

Station Crew Gears Up for Next Spacewalk, Keeps Up Microgravity Research

Expedition 74 flight engineers Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Jessica Meir of NASA pose for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock. Adenot was trying on a spacesuit to verify its comfort, mobility, and functionality with assistance from Meir.
Astronauts Sophie Adenot of ESA and Jessica Meir of NASA pose for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock. Adenot was trying on a spacesuit to verify its comfort, mobility, and functionality with assistance from Meir.
Credit: ESA/Sophie Adenot

The next spacewalk outside the International Space Station is set to take place on Tuesday, Aug. 18. Two Expedition 75 astronauts will work in the vacuum of space to replace a space-to-ground antenna to maintain high-speed data and communication transmissions between the orbital outpost and mission controllers.

Flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) are gearing up for next week’s spacewalk that will see the duo spend about six-and-a-half hours swapping an antenna on the orbital outpost’s Z1 truss segment. Menon and Adenot worked together on Monday inside the Quest airlock and organized the tools they will carry outside of the space station for the replacement job. Station commander Jessica Meir and flight engineer Jack Hathaway, both from NASA. studied the Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvers they will use to assist next week’s spacewalkers. Hathaway and Adenot also took turns cleaning the cooling systems in a pair of spacesuits. The quartet wrapped up Monday’s shift reviewing procedures for the upcoming spacewalk.

The most recent spacewalk took place on Aug. 6 to augment the space station’s power system. Meir and Menon spent six hours and 27 minutes building a modification kit on the station’s Starboard 6 truss segment where a roll out solar array is slated to be installed later this year.

The astronauts still had time for science on Monday and explored microgravity’s effect on physics, the human body, and more. Meir worked in the Destiny laboratory module and swapped physics research hardware for an investigation studying ways to manufacture semiconductor crystals and process metal alloys in weightlessness. Menon checked the Kibo laboratory module’s solid combustion experiment module for leaks. Adenot jogged on the COLBERT treadmill while wearing the EasyMotion-2 suit that sent electrical impulses and triggered muscle contractions to supplement her workout session

Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina kicked off their shift testing communication systems in the Zvezda service module. Dubrov then continued studying artificial intelligence tools to improve crew operations. Kikina cleaned the ventilation systems inside the Rassvet and Poisk moules.

Roscosmos flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev worked on a pair of different experiments on Monday. He first pointed a camera out a station window and photographed rivers and glaciers across Eastern Europe and Asia. Next, he wore virtual reality goggles and responded to computerized visual stimuli testing how his sense of balance and direction adapts to microgravity.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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