Sophie Adenot completes her third spacewalk with an all-female team

“You did a great job. You can be very proud of everything you have accomplished.” From the NASA command center in Houston, Chloe Mehring, flight director, was full of praise for Sophie Adenot and the American Jessica Meir, on their return inside the orbital laboratory.

The Frenchwoman completed her third outing outside the International Space Station in two weeks this Tuesday. This time she was in charge of a 100% female team. Released first into the void of space, shortly after 2:45 p.m. in France, she carried out a series of maintenance operations for more than six and a half hours alongside the American.

The duo notably replaced a “retroreflector” used to facilitate the navigation of space vehicles during their rendezvous and docking operations as well as a high-definition camera located on the beam of the ISS. The first French woman to “walk” in space has now accumulated 19 hours and 42 minutes of excursion in the vacuum of space. Before her, only four French people, all men, had led such outings.

If the start of the outing went like a charm, the end was slightly troubled by a problem encountered by Sophie Adenot with her suit. As during her second spacewalk, the Frenchwoman reported increasing difficulties with the left shoulder joint of her spacesuit, appearing to come from a hindered cable.

Despite this inconvenience, she was able to reach the station without problem. Earlier, she had taken samples from the airlock as well as her glove to look for possible microorganisms. She closed her outing by describing the wonder of observing the blue planet. “The Earth was truly beautiful, and it made us feel even more human,” she said. Tuesday's extravehicular walk (EVA) was the 284th in the history of the ISS dedicated to the assembly, maintenance and modernization of the orbital laboratory, NASA said, the sixth to be carried out by a duo of women.

Sophie Adenot had posted on her Instagram account an unexpected insight into how she was preparing for her release: a small, hand-made paper model floating in the ISS to help her “visualize” her future work site. Last Wednesday, the day after her second outing, she said she was “a little sore” but proud of her “mission accomplished”, in an interview with France 24 and RFI. “Every movement of the arm, of the hand, holding an object, it’s an incredible energy expenditure,” she detailed. In orbit 400 kilometers around the Earth for six and a half months, it must complete its mission in the fall.