A successful repair mission has made NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir the first to participate in an all-female spacewalk.
In a more than seven-hour mission outside of the International Space Station, the women successfully completed their goal of fixing a broken power controller that supplemented its solar network.
The momentous feat follows setbacks in March when the all-women walk was postponed due to ill-fitting space suit.
The momentous feat follows setbacks in March when the all-women walk was postponed due to ill-fitting space suit.
NASA astronauts Christina Koch (L) and Jessica Meir. Koch and Meir ventured outside the International Space Station today to replace a power controller unit that failed over the weekend
The first American female spacewalker, who carried out her own mission 35 years ago, Kathy Sullivan, said she was delighted by today’s milestone.
And a NASA spokesperson said: ‘Our achievements provide inspiration to students around the world, proving that hard work can lead you to great heights, and all students should be able to see themselves in those achievements.’
Koch and Meir replaced battery units called BCDUs after they failed to provide increased power to the ISS.
The failure had not significantly impacted the crew or its mission but needed toto be repaired nonetheless.
According to NASA, BCDUs regulate the charge for batteries that draw energy from the station’s solar collectors to provide power as the station orbits at night.
Koch, who is also set to complete the longest single spaceflight by a woman as she remains in orbit until February 2020, said gender milestones like the spacewalk are especially significant.
‘What we´re doing now shows all the work in the decades prior from all the women that worked to get us where we are today,’ Meir added.
Koch, who has completed four spacewalks prior, has become the 14th woman ever to walk in space while today marked Meir’s first spacewalk. The ISS has seen more than 200 spacewalks since 1998.
The planned all-woman spacewalk in March was called off because astronaut Ann McClain needed a medium spacesuit but only a large was available.
Due to safety issues with the fit she did not participate and man took her place, making today the revised date for the landmark mission.
‘We must never accept a risk that can instead be mitigated,’ she said on Twitter after the event. ‘Safety of the crew and execution of the mission come first.’
At the time the cancellation drew widespread criticism, including from former U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton and global activism group March for Science.
Woman completing spacewalks date back to July, 1984 when Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first to do so.
Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov – who died just last week – conducted history’s first spacewalk in 1965, four years before the US put men on the moon for the first time.
While today’s event is a long time coming, NASA said it was not planned.
‘It is something that was bound to happen eventually, and the increase in female astronauts in space for the past year is providing another window of opportunity,’ a spokeswoman said.
‘Fifty percent of the 2013 astronaut candidate class are women,’ she noted, ‘and of the 11 members of 2017 astronaut candidate class still in training, five are women.