NASA has scheduled astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday, August 6, 2026. If the operation goes ahead, it will be Menon’s first spacewalk and Meir’s sixth.
In a media advisory updated on July 27, NASA said live coverage of U.S. spacewalk 96 would begin at 7 a.m. EDT, or 4:30 p.m. IST. The agency expects the spacewalk to start at 8:35 a.m. EDT, or 6:05 p.m. IST, and last about six and a half hours.
Those are announced timings, not a record of a completed event. Space-station operations can change, and readers planning to watch should check NASA’s schedule again closer to August 6.
NASA says Meir and Menon will leave the Quest airlock to install hardware that modifies the station’s 3B power channel and prepares it for a future International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array, usually shortened to IROSA.
In simpler terms, the astronauts are due to prepare one of the station’s electrical paths for another solar array. The planned array will be the seventh IROSA, and NASA says it is scheduled for delivery later in 2026.
The added array is intended to provide more power for critical station operations. NASA says those operations include the station’s eventual safe and controlled deorbit, a future process for bringing the orbital complex out of service in a managed way.
Meir will be spacewalk crew member 1 and wear a suit marked with red stripes. Menon will be crew member 2 in an unmarked suit, a detail that can help viewers tell them apart during the broadcast.
Expedition 75 began on July 26, 2026. NASA lists Meir as the expedition commander and Menon as a flight engineer.
NASA had already documented Menon working with spacewalking equipment aboard the station. In an update published on July 23, the agency said Menon, Sophie Adenot and Jack Hathaway checked spacesuit components including batteries, lights and cameras. The photograph accompanying this article is a portrait of Menon taken at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on January 8, 2026; it does not show the scheduled August 6 spacewalk.
NASA has scheduled a preview news conference for July 30 at 2 p.m. EDT, or 11:30 p.m. IST, and says it will stream the conference and spacewalk coverage online. The most important update for viewers will be whether the August 6 timing remains unchanged after mission teams complete their final checks.
