A historic moment! NASA astronauts complete the first all-female spacewalk
Friday, Oct. 18 was a major day in space history, when NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch completed the first all-female spacewalk!
Although this was the 221st spacewalk performed in support of space station assembly, it was the first one to be conducted entirely by women!
For this spacewalk, Meir and Koch were tasked with replacing a battery charge/discharge unit that failed to activate after new lithium-ion batteries were installed on the space station’s exterior structure. NASA provided a livestream of the spacewalk on their website, YouTube channel, and social media, so people across the world could watch it happen.
This was Koch’s fourth spacewalk, and Meir’s first. Meir also became the 15th woman to spacewalk, and the 14th U.S. woman to spacewalk.
“It’s really interesting for us,” Meir said in an interview. “This is just us doing our job. We’ve been training for six years, so it’s coming up here and doing our job. At the same time, we recognize that it is a historic achievement and we want to give credit to the women who came before us. We have followed in their footsteps to get where we are today.”
Koch agreed that the excitement is important. “Women haven’t always been at the table. It’s wonderful to be contributing to human spaceflight at a time when all contributions are being accepted, when everyone has a role and that can lead, in turn, to increased chance for success.”
Congratulations to these historic women, and to all that came before who made this possible!
Interested in more space stories like this one? Catch a show in LSC’s Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium, the biggest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere. Our “Wonders of the Night Sky” all-live show always sets aside a portion for LSC Space News Now stories.
