Sophie Adenot’s Historic Spacewalks: First French Woman to EVA

On 18 August 2026, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and NASA astronaut Anil Menon conducted a United States-designated spacewalk (U.S. Spacewalk 97) outside the International Space Station (ISS). The pair spent 6 hours 23 minutes working on the station’s Z1 truss, removing a failed Space-to-Ground antenna (SGANT). The EVA marked the first time a French woman performed an extravehicular activity (EVA) at an altitude of roughly 400 km above Earth.

Sophie Adenot Becomes First French Woman to Walk in Space Who Is Sophie Adenot? Career, Achievements and Historic ISS Spacewalk Euronews

Born on 5 July 1982 in Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, France, Adenot earned an aeronautical engineering degree from ISAE-SUPAERO (2003) and a master’s in human-factors engineering from MIT (2004). She later became France’s first female helicopter test pilot (2018) and a colonel in the French Air and Space Force. Selected by ESA in November 2022 from more than 22,500 applicants, she completed astronaut certification on 22 April 2024 and launched to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon on 13 February 2026 (docking 14 February 2026). The mission, named ?psilon, is a nine-month long stay.

Who Is Sophie Adenot? Career, Achievements and Historic ISS Spacewalk

• Date of first EVA: 18 August 2026

Who Is Sophie Adenot? Career, Achievements and Historic ISS Spacewalk

• Duration: 6 h 23 min (per Adda247 and Utkarsh)

Euronews

• EVA designation: U.S. Spacewalk 97

Sophie Adenot Becomes First French Woman to Walk in Space

• Task: Remove the faulty SGANT antenna; replacement postponed due to time constraints.

Euronews

• Historical significance: First French woman to perform an EVA; second European woman after Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti.

France 24

• Subsequent EVA: Planned for 25 August 2026 to install the replacement antenna and secure the original unit.

Sophie Adenot Becomes First French Woman to Walk in Space

Adenot posted on social media after the EVA, writing, “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 added gratitude to the teams that enabled the mission. NASA mission control later instructed the crew to secure the faulty antenna with a long-duration tie-down, deferring full replacement to a follow-up EVA.

France 24

• EVA count: Adda247 lists the 18 August EVA as the 282nd ISS-supporting spacewalk, while Euronews describes the subsequent 25 August EVA as the 283rd overall and the 98th U.S. spacewalk.

Who Is Sophie Adenot? Career, Achievements and Historic ISS Spacewalk

• Duration of second EVA: Euronews reports a 6 hours 30 minutes duration for the 25 August EVA, whereas other sources give only the 6 h 23 min figure for the 18 August EVA. No source provides a definitive duration for the second EVA at the time of writing.

France 24

• “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,” — Sophie Adenot

France 24

NASA has scheduled a second EVA for 25 August 2026 to retrieve, install, and connect the replacement SGANT antenna, and to relocate the original unit to storage. Successful completion will restore full high-bandwidth communications between the ISS and Mission Control in Houston.

Euronews