Now Reading: Indian-origin astronaut Menon installs ISS antenna on second spacewalk
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Indian-origin astronaut Menon installs ISS antenna on second spacewalk
Indian-origin astronaut Menon installs ISS antenna on second spacewalk
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot completed a spacewalk on Tuesday to install a new Ku-band communications antenna on the International Space Station. The spacewalk, the 283rd…
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot completed a spacewalk on Tuesday to install a new Ku-band communications antenna on the International Space Station. The spacewalk, the 283rd in ISS history, restored critical redundancy for high-speed communications with mission control after a failed antenna forced an earlier attempt on August 18.
It was the third spacewalk for Menon, who traces his ancestry to Kerala, and the second for Adenot, making her the first French woman to perform an extravehicular activity. During the August 18 outing, the pair removed the failed antenna but ran out of time to install the replacement. NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir assisted from inside the station, with Hathaway operating the Canadarm2 robotic arm to guide Menon to the worksite on the Z1 truss segment.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The Ku-band antenna is one of two primary radio links the ISS uses to stream video and telemetry through NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Losing one meant the crew had a single point of failure for high-data-rate communication during critical events like spacecraft docking. NASA's spacewalk schedule lists around two dozen EVAs per year, and a failed installation is rare enough that the agency built a dedicated replacement antenna on a boom stored on the station's truss. Menon's three spacewalks put him among the most experienced Indian-origin astronauts, though he remains a NASA employee and not part of the Indian Space Research Organisation's Gaganyaan programme. The next milestone for both astronauts is the return of the Crew-10 mission, currently scheduled for early September.
Source: rediff.com
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