Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot complete sixth all-woman spacewalk outside the ISS

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir and European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot completed a 6-hour, 49-minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, September 1, marking the sixth all-woman spacewalk in history.

The astronauts began the spacewalk at 8:40 a.m. Eastern time and returned to the station’s Quest airlock at 3:29 p.m., according to NASA. The excursion was designated U.S. spacewalk 99 and was the 284th spacewalk supporting the station’s assembly, maintenance and upgrades.

Adenot replaced a failed retroreflector on the forward port of the station’s Harmony module. The device helps visiting spacecraft navigate during rendezvous and docking operations, making it part of the infrastructure used to support traffic at the orbital outpost.

Meir replaced a high-definition camera mounted on the station’s truss with a spare unit. The pair also installed some jumper cables, collected exterior swab samples for a microorganism study and began preparing the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer for a future repair operation.

Not every planned task was completed. NASA said Mission Control deferred the installation of additional guide studs for the spectrometer’s replacement radiator so engineers could develop a plan for finishing the work on a later spacewalk. Remaining jumper-cable work and other noncritical tasks were also moved to a future date after the crew fell behind schedule.

Adenot experienced limited movement in her left arm during the operation. NASA said Meir inspected the suit and determined that the glove-heater harness was probably catching and restricting movement near the shoulder. Adjusting the joint appeared to resolve the problem before the astronauts re-entered the airlock.

The spacewalk was Adenot’s third and Meir’s seventh. NASA said Meir now ranks third among women astronauts for total spacewalks, behind Peggy Whitson and Suni Williams.

The event also links a landmark in spaceflight history with routine orbital maintenance. The first all-woman spacewalk took place on October 18, 2019, when Meir and Christina Koch replaced a failed battery charge-discharge unit outside the station. A later all-woman spacewalk was conducted in May 2025 by NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers.

The rarity of these pairings reflects the demanding logistics of spacewalk planning, rather than a separate category of work. Crews are assigned according to mission requirements, training, spacesuit availability and the tasks scheduled for a particular expedition. In this case, Meir and Adenot were already members of Expedition 75 and had trained for the station-maintenance campaign.

The immediate follow-up will be further work on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer’s radiator and unfinished cable and guide-stud tasks. The spectrometer is a large physics instrument mounted outside the station that studies cosmic particles; its future servicing is intended to help extend its operations in orbit.

For readers watching the footage, the astronauts’ work may look slow and deliberate, but that pace is essential. Every movement is performed while tethered to the station, with tools secured against drifting away and spacesuits providing life support in the vacuum of space. The operation combined a widely watched milestone for women in spaceflight with practical work intended to keep the station and visiting spacecraft operating safely.