Expedition 75 is Go for Tuesday Spacewalk to Install High-Speed Antenna

Two astronauts will exit the International Space Station on Tuesday and conduct a spacewalk to finish installing a high-speed space-to-ground antenna. The duo completed final spacewalk preparations on Monday with two of their Expedition 75 crewmates while the rest of the orbital residents studied the human respiratory system, activated Earth observation gear, and packed a cargo spacecraft prior to its departure.

Flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) wrapped up their spacewalk preparations on Monday with tool configurations, spacesuit leak checks, and procedure reviews inside the Quest airlock. They are scheduled to set their spacesuits to battery power at 8:35 a.m. EDT on Tuesday signifying the start of a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk to finish installing an antenna on the Z1 truss segment above the Unity module. NASA's live spacewalk coverage will begin at 7 a.m.

NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, flight engineer and station commander respectively, assisted Menon and Adenot with their spacewalk preparations throughout Monday. All four astronauts gathered together at the end of their shift for a conference with mission controllers on the ground to discuss spacewalk readiness and robotics operations.

On Tuesday, Hathaway will command the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the orbital outpost with Menon attached and guide him along the antenna installation worksite. Adenot will remain tethered to the Z1 where she and Menon will install the antenna and make the precise connections required to activate high-speed transmissions with mission control. Meir will monitor the spacewalkers and work with Hathaway to help the spacewalkers in and out of their spacesuits.

Roscosmos flight engineers Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina took turns at the beginning of their shift on Monday wearing an acoustic sensor around their necks that recorded their rapid exhalation rate. Doctors are exploring how microgravity affects air and fluid motion in the lungs. Afterward, Dubrov packed the Progress 94 resupply ship with trash and obsolete gear in advance of its departure in September. Kikina set up and activated Earth observation gear to automatically photograph islands and volcanoes throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev programmed a different set of Earth observation hardware to capture multi-wavelength imagery of African lakes and the continent's Atlantic coastline.

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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