NASA’s First All-Women Spacewalk Makes History

Jessica Meir and Christina Koch made history by becoming the first all-female team to carry out a spacewalk together on Friday, following a spacesuit blunder earlier this year, for which the historic mission has to be aborted.

Astronauts Christina and Jessica set out to replace a power controller on the International Space Station at 1138 GMT. They began their first spacewalk mission after making safety standard checks on their suits and tethers, before making their way to the repair site.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also emphasized it as of symbolic importance. As he says, “We want to make sure that space is available to all people, and this is another milestone in that evolution. I have an 11-year-old daughter, I want her to see herself as having all the same opportunities that I found myself as having when I was growing up”.

The first all-female mission was supposed to take place in March this year but has to be canceled at the last moment because the space agency had only one medium-sized space suit, with a male-female combination only can performing the required task till date.

Christina Koch, an electrical engineer, was leading Jessica Meir, who holds a doctorate in marine biology and is making her first-ever spacewalk. Both were entrusted with the task of replacing a faulty battery charge and discharge unit, which is commonly known as a BCDU.

The international space station depends on solar power for working, but is out of direct sunlight for much of its orbit and therefore it needs batteries and BCDU regulates the amount of charge the battery requires.

The task of replacing the battery was announced earlier this week as part of a wider mission of replacing aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with high capacity lithiumion units.

The United States has sent its first female astronaut into space in the year 1983, when Sally Ride took part in the seventh Space Shuttle mission, now it has more women astronauts than any other country on the space mission.

The first woman to reach space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in the year 1963, followed by compatriot Svetlana Savitskaya in the year 1982, two years later she also became the first woman spacewalker.

The spacewalk comes at a time when NASA is planning to return to the Moon by 2024 under the Artemis mission, which is named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. The mission will also see the first woman to set foot on the lunar surface, also possibly as part of an all-women team.