Anil Menon Makes First Spacewalk, Meir Logs Her Sixth
Anil Menon's first spacewalk and Jessica Meir's sixth began at 8:33 a.m. Eastern, with the pair preparing power channel 3B on the Starboard 6 truss.
Astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon stepped out through the International Space Station’s Quest airlock on August 6 at 8:33 a.m. Eastern, two minutes ahead of the published schedule. Their job is to assemble a changeout kit on the Starboard 6 truss segment, preparing power channel 3B for a solar array that has yet to reach orbit. The whole task is expected to take about six and a half hours.
Meir is the lead spacewalker and wears a suit marked with red stripes, while Menon, the second crew member out, wears an unmarked suit. The stripes are not decoration, they are the only reliable way for flight controllers in Houston watching the video feed to tell two people apart in identical spacesuits. This is Meir’s sixth time working outside the station. For Menon, it is his first.
Why does the station need another solar array?
The kit being built on the S6 truss will later support installation of a rollout solar array known as IROSA, the seventh to be added to the station. NASA has said delivery is planned later this year but has not given a firm date. With this one, the station will already have six IROSA arrays in place.
The more interesting detail is why NASA wants the extra power. Alongside the station’s day to day operations, the agency’s statement explicitly mentions a safe, controlled deorbit as well. In other words, part of the power upgrade underway now is meant to support the eventual end of a laboratory that has been operating in orbit for more than two decades. It is a detail easy to miss in coverage of routine maintenance, yet it reframes the whole run of work planned for August.
Going by the program’s history, this is the 281st spacewalk carried out to assemble, maintain and upgrade the station, and the 96th under the US numbering system.
How the preparation unfolded
Meir and Menon spent Wednesday inside the Quest airlock, setting up tools, prepping their suits and running through procedures. They were assisted by flight engineers Jack Hathaway of NASA and Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency, who also handled suiting the astronauts up and down and tracked the operation throughout the spacewalk itself. The crew is designated Expedition 75.
NASA’s coverage went live on NASA+ at 7 a.m. Eastern, an hour and a half before the airlock opened.
The schedule itself had shifted. NASA updated its media advisory on July 27 specifically to correct the start time for Thursday, August 6. Four days later, on July 30 at 2 p.m. Eastern, the agency held a briefing at Johnson Space Center in Houston, where Bill Spetch, Chris Dobbins and Chloe Mehring previewed the three spacewalks planned for August.
What comes next after August 6
This is the first of three spacewalks planned for August, carrying sequence numbers 281, 282 and 283.
- August 13: replacement of the ground communications antenna that carries data and high speed links between mission control in Houston and the station
- August 25: connecting cables for power channels and the data relay system, along with replacing docking navigation equipment on the forward port of the Harmony module
What today’s spacewalk cannot settle is when the seventh IROSA array will actually be in place. NASA is only committing to delivery sometime this year, and no installation date has been announced. The agency has also not released crew assignments or exact timing for spacewalks 97 and 98, saying only that details will follow closer to each date. So the one certain outcome of this spacewalk is hardware bolted onto the S6 truss, not new power flowing through the station.
