Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot successfully completed a vital spacewalk to install a new Ku-band communications antenna on the International Space Station, restoring critical communication redundancy for the orbital laboratory.
Key Points
- Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot successfully installed a replacement Ku-band communications antenna on the International Space Station.
- This spacewalk, the 283rd in ISS history, aimed to restore critical communications redundancy for the orbital laboratory.
- It marked Menon's third spacewalk and Adenot's second, making her the first French woman to perform an EVA.
- The installation involved precise connections for high-speed transmissions with mission control.
- NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir provided crucial assistance from inside the ISS.
Astronauts Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot on Tuesday stepped out of the International Space Station for a spacewalk to install a communications antenna, a task they could not complete during their previous outing.
Successful Antenna Installation on ISS
Menon and Adenot began their spacewalk, the 283rd in the station's history, at 8:35 am ET to bolt the replacement Ku-band antenna onto the Z1 truss segment above the Unity module to restore the communications redundancy on the orbital laboratory.
It was the third spacewalk for Menon, who traces his ancestry to Kerala, and the second for Adenot, the European Space Agency astronaut who became the first French woman to carry out an extra vehicular activity on August 18.
During the August 18 spacewalk lasting six hours and 23 minutes, Menon and Adenot removed the failed communications antenna from its boom assembly. However, the task took considerably longer than the timeline allowed.
NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, flight engineer and station commander respectively, assisted Menon and Adenot with their spacewalk.
On Tuesday, Hathaway commanded the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the orbital outpost with Menon attached and guided him along the antenna installation worksite.
Adenot remained tethered to the Z1 as she and Menon began to install the antenna and make the precise connections required to activate high-speed transmissions with mission control.
Meir monitored the spacewalkers and worked with Hathaway to help the spacewalkers in and out of their spacesuits.
