NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, a native of Caribou, Maine, completed her seventh spacewalk on Tuesday, September 1, alongside ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, who became the first French woman to perform several EVAs. In a 6 hour 49 minutes spacewalk outside the International Space Station, the pair replaced a major spacecraft navigation reflector on the Harmony module's forward port, swapped out a high-definition camera on the station's truss and swabbed exterior surfaces for microorganisms.
The mission also faced a mechanical hiccup when Adenot experienced mobility issues with her left shoulder joint near the end of the spacewalk. Meir quickly assessed the situation, unzipping part of Adenot's spacesuit to free a kinked glove heater harness that had restricted movement, a fix that enabled both astronauts to safely return to the Quest airlock. Meir's seventh EVA ranks her third overall among all women at NASA in terms of number of spacewalks, following only Peggy Whitson (10) and Suni Williams (9).
Her total EVA time is now 49 hours and 22 minutes. For Adenot, it was her third spacewalk, making her total reach 19 hours and 42 minutes. In an exclusive interview conducted recently by France 24 while in space, she referred to the spacewalk as a "miracle" and explained that "we had every mechanical problem possible." From an altitude of 400 kilometers above the Earth, Adenot also saw clear manifestations of climate change, dried-up lakes, smoke from fires and green areas becoming grey and yellow due to climate change.
"Climate change and hot dry summers are very visible. They are blatant," she told France 24. Tuesday's EVA is the 284th spacewalk in support of the assembly and maintenance of the ISS, the seventh EVA this year, and the sixth ever all-female spacewalk.