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NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot completed a 6-hour 30-minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station on 25 August 2026, ending at 2:57 p.m. EDT.
The excursion was designated U.S. Spacewalk 98 and was the 283rd spacewalk in support of station assembly, maintenance and upgrades.
The pair installed and connected a spare Ku-band Space-to-Ground Antenna (SGANT) on the Z1 truss, restoring the high-speed data link between the station and Mission Control in Houston.
The work completed a job begun on an 18 August spacewalk, when stuck bolts and connectors on the failed antenna halted progress; the failed unit was secured to a spare-parts platform.
It was Menon's third career spacewalk and Adenot's second; NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway operated the Canadarm2 robotic arm from inside the station.
The SGANT is the station's high-rate radio link. It works in the Ku-band, a slice of the microwave spectrum roughly between 12 and 18 GHz that is widely used for satellite television and broadband because its short wavelength supports high data rates from a compact dish. Rather than pointing at a ground station directly - which would only work for the few minutes per orbit that a ground site is in view - the station's Ku-band signal is relayed through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites in geostationary orbit, which are almost always in view and pass the traffic down to Earth. That is what carries the station's video, science data and high-bandwidth telemetry to Mission Control in Houston. Losing it does not endanger the crew, since separate lower-rate S-band links carry voice and critical commands, but it does throttle everything that depends on bandwidth.
Simple Analogy: The S-band link is the walkie-talkie that always works; the Ku-band antenna is the broadband line. You can survive on the walkie-talkie, but nobody gets to send the video.
A modular orbital laboratory operated by NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and CSA, continuously inhabited since November 2000
Intergovernmental space agency of European member states; Sophie Adenot's parent agency
The station's robotic manipulator arm, contributed by the Canadian Space Agency, used to move payloads and to carry spacewalkers to worksites
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Work performed by an astronaut outside a spacecraft, commonly called a spacewalk.
The long external backbone structure of the ISS that carries solar arrays, radiators and communication hardware; the Z1 segment holds the Ku-band antenna.
A microwave frequency band of roughly 12-18 GHz used for high-data-rate satellite communication.