NASA is preparing to conduct its first spacewalk on the International Space Station (ISS) in nearly a year, ending an unusually long pause for the activity.
To be fair, NASA had planned a spacewalk in early January, but canceled it after one of the two astronauts participating had a serious health issue that ultimately forced the early return of a SpaceX crew to Earth.
The space agency is currently planning a March 18 spacewalk with NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams.
Coincidentally, the spacewalk is scheduled for the 61st anniversary of the first spacewalk. The milestone was achieved by Alexei Leonov, who left his spacecraft for about ten minutes during the Voskhod 2 mission in 1965. About three months later, the first US spacewalk ever followed, carried out by NASA astronaut Ed White during the Gemini 4 mission.
Meir and Williams prepared for their upcoming spacewalk by inspecting and trying on their spacesuits and checking the Quest airlock from which they will exit the space-based facility.
The pair will spend about six and a half hours in the vacuum of space, installing a conversion kit and laying cables on the port side of the orbital outpost as part of preparations for a future roll-out solar array. The seventh rollout solar array will be installed during a later spacewalk to expand the power generation capabilities of the main solar arrays, NASA said.
This will be the fourth spacewalk for Meir, who took part in her first in 2019, followed by two more a few months later. Meir arrived at the space station last month as part of SpaceX’s Crew-12.
Williams, on the other hand, is on his first space mission and so the upcoming spacewalk will be his debut outside the station. The American astronaut arrived at the ISS ahead of Meir in November 2025 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
