1ST FEMALE SPACEWALK
CAPE CANAVERAL: The world’s first female spacewalking team of Nasa astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history high above Earth on Friday, floating out of the ISS to fix a broken part of the power network.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA: The world’s first female spacewalking team made history high above Earth on Friday, floating out of the International Space Station (ISS) to fix a broken part of the power network.
As NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir emerged one by one, it marked the first time in a half-century of spacewalking that a woman floated out without a male crewmate.
America’s first female spacewalker from 35 years ago, Kathy Sullivan, was delighted. She said It’s good to finally have enough women in the astronaut corps and trained for spacewalking for this to happen.
NASA leaders - along with women and others around the world - cheered Koch and Meir on. At the same time, many noted that this will hopefully become routine in the future.
“We’ve got qualified women running the control, running space centres, commanding the station, commanding spaceships and doing spacewalks,” Sullivan told AP earlier this week. “Every now and then there’s more than one woman in the same place.”
Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a three-time spacewalker who watched from Mission Control, added: “Hopefully, this will now be considered normal.”
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine watched the big event unfold from NASA headquarters in Washington.
“We have the right people doing the right job at the right time,” he said.
NASA originally wanted to conduct an all-female spacewalk last spring, but did not have enough medium-size suits ready to go.