Some of the most extraordinary work humans do happens 250 miles over your head, moving at 17,500 mph. This August, NASA is sending astronauts outside the International Space Station for a rare run of three spacewalks in three weeks — and the best part is that you don't need a NASA badge to be involved. You can watch the spacewalks live, and you can step into your own backyard and watch the very same station sail across the sky. Here's what's happening up there, and how to follow it.
Three spacewalks in three weeks
A spacewalk — NASA calls it an EVA, for "extravehicular activity" — is one of the most demanding and carefully rehearsed things any astronaut does. Cramming three of them into a single month is a busy stretch even by station standards. Here's the August 2026 lineup:
NASA's August 2026 spacewalks
- Aug 6 — U.S. Spacewalk 96: Jessica Meir (on her 6th spacewalk, in the red-striped suit) and rookie Anil Menon install hardware to modify the station's 3B power channel, prepping it for a future roll-out solar array. About 6.5 hours; live coverage from 6:30 a.m. EDT, hatch open around 8 a.m.
- Aug 13 — U.S. Spacewalk 97: replacing a space-to-ground antenna that carries communications between the station and Mission Control in Houston. Crew to be announced.
- Aug 25 — U.S. Spacewalk 98: connecting power-channel cables and data-relay systems and swapping a navigational docking aid on the Harmony module. Crew to be announced.
There's a bigger story behind the to-do list. Much of this work — new power channels, roll-out solar arrays, upgraded communications — is about keeping the 25-year-old station healthy and powered through its final years of operation. NASA plans to fly the ISS through 2030 before safely bringing it down, so these upgrades are, quite literally, powering the station through the home stretch.
What actually happens out there
Stepping outside is not as simple as opening a hatch. Before an EVA, astronauts spend hours "pre-breathing" pure oxygen to purge nitrogen from their blood, so they don't get decompression sickness — the same "bends" that threaten scuba divers — inside the low-pressure suit. The suit itself, the EMU, is essentially a human-shaped spacecraft: it supplies oxygen, water cooling, power, and communications, all while the wearer works in a vacuum where sunlight and shadow swing between roughly +250°F and −250°F.
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Out on the truss, the two astronauts are always tethered — nothing is allowed to float away — and you can tell them apart by their suits: the lead spacewalker wears the red-striped suit (that's Meir on August 6), while their partner's suit is unmarked. And through it all, the station keeps racing around the planet beneath them at five miles per second.
You can see the ISS with your own eyes
Here's what surprises most people: the space station is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. At its best it outshines every star and rivals the planet Venus — and you don't need a telescope or even binoculars. It looks like a brilliant, steady point of light (it doesn't blink like an aircraft) gliding smoothly across the sky, crossing from one horizon toward the other in just a few minutes.
The trick is timing. The station is only visible when it's dark where you are but the ISS, high above, is still catching sunlight — so the best viewing windows fall in the couple of hours after sunset or before sunrise. Because it circles the Earth about every 90 minutes, the crew sees roughly 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every single day.
Spotting the space station
- When: the hour or two after dusk or before dawn, on a clear night.
- What to look for: a bright, steady, non-blinking light moving steadily across the sky.
- How long: a typical pass lasts only about 2–5 minutes before it fades into Earth's shadow.
- Gear: none — just your eyes. It's one of the easiest "wow" sights in all of skywatching.
Track the station like mission control
The one thing you need is knowing when to look — a pass only lasts a few minutes, and the station's schedule over any given spot shifts night to night. That's exactly where a satellite tracker earns its place: instead of hoping to catch it, you get the pass times for your location and step outside at the right moment. Follow the station's live track around the globe, watch it approach, and know precisely when to look up. And once you've caught the ISS, the same tool opens up the rest of the sky's traffic — the Hubble Space Telescope, brand-new Starlink "trains" strung out like a string of pearls, and thousands of other satellites overhead right now.
How to watch the spacewalks live
You can watch every one of these EVAs from the ground. NASA streams its spacewalks in full on NASA+ and at nasa.gov/live, with commentary that walks you through each task as it happens. For the August 6 spacewalk, coverage begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT, with the astronauts expected to switch their suits to battery power — the official start of the spacewalk — around 8 a.m. It's several hours of one of the most remarkable workplaces imaginable, broadcast live and free.
Put the two together and you've got a perfect August plan: watch the astronauts head outside in the morning, then step into your backyard that evening and catch their station streaking silently overhead. Few things connect the enormity of spaceflight to your own patch of sky quite like it.
Want to catch the ISS over your own home? Keep the SkyWatch Satellite Radar Tracker handy to see the station's live orbit and get an alert the moment it's about to cross your sky.
