Overview
- On Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot conducted U.S. Spacewalk 97 that lasted about 6 hours and 23 minutes and removed a failed Space-to-Ground antenna from the station’s Z1 truss.
- Sophie Adenot made her first-ever EVA and became the first French woman to walk in space while Menon worked partly while positioned on the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
- The removed antenna had been unable to track NASA’s data relay satellites since November, and flight controllers ordered the pair to lash the failed unit to the truss because there was insufficient time to retrieve and install the spare.
- Delays came from hard-to-break power and data connectors and from installing locking pins on the antenna’s gimbal, tasks that took longer than planners expected and forced mission control to defer the activation steps.
- The antenna provides a high-speed communications link to Mission Control in Houston, redundancy for which managers say is important, and NASA and ESA streamed the EVA live while teams weigh adding the installation to the next scheduled spacewalk or a later outing.