Two astronauts will do some repair work outside the International Space Station today (Aug. 25), and you can watch the action live.
NASA’s Anil Menon and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency will conduct a spacewalk today (Aug. 25) to replace a space-to-ground-antenna. The extravehicular activity (EVA) is expected to start around 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 GMT) and last 6.5 hours.
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will start at 7:00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT).
This will be the third spacewalk for Menon and the second for Adenot, the first French woman ever to conduct an EVA. Her history-making first excursion occurred on Aug. 18, when she and Menon removed a failed space-to-ground antenna, a relay link that enables high-speed communications between the International Space Station (ISS) and Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The duo ran out of time before they could install a replacement antenna, however. They’ll finish the job today, if all goes to plan.
“If time allows, Menon and Adenot also will attempt a get‑ahead task to replace a retroreflector on the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module, which will improve navigation data for visiting spacecraft,” NASA officials wrote in a spacewalk preview.
Adenot arrived at the ISS in February as part of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission, which also includes NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
Menon came aboard on July 14, making the trip on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. Menon performed his first-ever spacewalk on Aug. 6, with Meir.
Menon will be “crewmember 1” on today’s spacewalk, and Adenot will be “crewmember 2.” The EVA will be the 283rd in the history of the ISS, which has been continuously occupied by rotating astronaut crews since November 2000.