French astronaut Sophie Adenot has successfully completed her second spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS), just one week after becoming the first French woman to perform an extravehicular activity.
The 44-year-old astronaut had spent the weekend preparing for the mission, sharing a video on her Instagram account on Sunday showing her testing her spacesuit and checking equipment with fellow crew member, American astronaut Anil Menon.
Adenot and Menon are part of a four-member crew currently undertaking a nine-month mission aboard the ISS. Tuesday’s planned spacewalk was focused on replacing one of the station’s communication antennas.
Adenot made history on August 18 when she became the first French woman to conduct a spacewalk, working around 400 kilometres above Earth. Before her achievement, only four French astronauts had ventured beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Reflecting on her first experience outside the station, Adenot expressed her enthusiasm on social media.
“You could probably hear it in my voice over the radio, but I A-D-O-R-E-D working in the vacuum of space. It is a true adventure within an adventure – made all the more beautiful because it is experienced as a team,” she wrote.
Following the spacewalk, Adenot also shared her appreciation for the people who helped make the mission possible.
“Yeah, what a day,” she said. “My deepest gratitude goes to everyone who made this possible, pioneers who came before us, but also the incredible teams working behind the scenes today.”
An engineer by training and a former test pilot, Adenot became the second Frenchwoman to travel into space in February, following Claudie Haigneré.
Before Adenot, the most recent French astronaut to carry out a spacewalk was Thomas Pesquet. He completed six spacewalks during two missions aboard the International Space Station.