Sophie Adenot Prepared for Historic ISS Spacewalk to Repair Communications

Sophie Adenot is poised to make history as the first French woman to conduct a spacewalk, undertaking a critical mission to repair the International Space Station’s communications system.

A NASA-published image from the ISS blog shows Adenot smiling while testing a white spacesuit ahead of the excursion.

“It will be my turn to venture outside the Station,” Adenot posted on social media, marking the milestone.

Describing a spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA), as ‘an adventure within the adventure,’ Adenot shared her excitement at a pre-flight press conference.

Accompanied by US astronaut Anil Menon, Adenot will exit the station on Tuesday inside a roughly 250-kilogram spacesuit to service a high-speed communications antenna linking the orbital outpost with mission control in Houston, Texas.

NASA announced the EVA last week, confirming the duo will spend approximately six and a half hours conducting work outside the station.

Intensive preparation for the spacewalk began months in advance, including underwater training in a swimming pool to simulate weightlessness.

Using a full-scale ISS model, Adenot rehearsed safety protocols, learning how to secure herself to the station, manage tools, and coordinate with her partner and ground control.

Terrifying and awe-inspiring

In a spacesuit, “every hand movement on a carabiner feels like squeezing a tennis ball in half,” French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré remarked during an interview with Franceinfo.

Haigneré performed a spacewalk in 1999 during Mir’s final mission, the ISS’s predecessor.

Astronauts consistently describe EVA as both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

“When you exit the airlock and drift into the void—450 kilometres of emptiness—you need a strong heart,” Thomas Pesquet told France 2 in a 2017 interview. “But very quickly, your brain registers that you won’t fall; you will simply float.”

Pesquet, the latest French astronaut to conduct an EVA, noted that the task demands intense focus, yet after several hours, “I found myself looking up and taking in the Earth—and it was even more beautiful than from inside the Station.”

Adenot, who may undertake a second spacewalk on 25 August, is the second Frenchwoman to travel to space, following Claudie Haigneré, who flew missions in 1996 and 2001 but did not perform EVAs.

She will become the second European woman to conduct a spacewalk, after Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti, who performed one in 2022.

The International Space Summit in Paris, scheduled for 9 and 10 September, will likely feature international space cooperation as a central theme.

Organised by France and Germany, the summit aims to unite major space powers and private-sector firms to discuss securing access to space while updating international regulations for the rapid growth of commercial and governmental activity in orbit.

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