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Station Crew Gears Up for Next Spacewalk, Keeps Up Microgravity Research

The next spacewalk outside the International Space Station is set to take place on Tuesday, Aug. 18. Two Expedition 75 astronauts will work in the vacuum of space to replace a space-to-ground antenna to maintain high-speed data and communication transmissions between the orbital outpost and mission controllers.

Flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) are gearing up for next week’s spacewalk that will see the duo spend about six-and-a-half hours swapping an antenna on the orbital outpost’s Z1 truss segment. Menon and Adenot worked together on Monday inside the Quest airlock and organized the tools they will carry outside of the space station for the replacement job. Station commander Jessica Meir and flight engineer Jack Hathaway, both from NASA. studied the Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvers they will use to assist next week’s spacewalkers. Hathaway and Adenot also took turns cleaning the cooling systems in a pair of spacesuits. The quartet wrapped up Monday’s shift reviewing procedures for the upcoming spacewalk.

The most recent spacewalk took place on Aug. 6 to augment the space station’s power system. Meir and Menon spent six hours and 27 minutes building a modification kit on the station’s Starboard 6 truss segment where a roll out solar array is slated to be installed later this year.

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