French Astronaut Sophie Adenot Completes Second Spacewalk on ISS

By Romain Gutkind with AFP

Published on 25/08/2026 – 19:42 GMT+2

The mission began at 12:27 GMT. Twenty minutes later, Sophie Adenot was once again out in the vacuum of space around the ISS, alongside her crewmate, American astronaut Anil Menon.

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The 44-year-old Frenchwoman had already completed her first spacewalk, on 18 August, with Anil Menon, and says she “loved working in the vacuum of space”.

The two astronauts spent more than six hours outside the ISS, just enough time to remove the faulty Space-to-Ground antenna, the one NASA engineers call SGANT.

The equipment is used by the ISS for its communications with Houston.

Sophie Adenot and Anil Menon had struggled with stubborn bolts and connectors, and the two astronauts did not have time to replace SGANT with a new antenna.

The aim of this second spacewalk is to finish the job: retrieve the new antenna, install it and move SGANT to its storage location.

If no bolts or unforeseen problems slow them down, the two astronauts also plan to reinstall the “retroreflector” on the outside of the station.

In February this year, Sophie Adenot became the second French woman to fly into space. Claudie Haigneré went before her, in 1996 and 2001.

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