First all-female spacewalk set to take place during Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month.
‘‘It was not orchestrated to be this way,’’ said Nasa spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz. ‘‘These spacewalks were originally scheduled to take place in the fall – they are to upgrade batteries on the space station.’’
McClain and Koch’s spacewalk will be the second of three planned excursions for Expedition 59, which launches next week.
Schierholz pointed to the fact that women would be at the controls as well. Mary Lawrence will serve as lead flight director, and Jackie Kagey will be the lead spacewalk flight controller.
McClain is also slated to perform a spacewalk with astronaut Nick Hague on March 22.
Both McClain and Koch were members of Nasa’s 2013 astronaut class, half of which was comprised of women.
McClain, a major in the US Army and a pilot, ‘‘wanted to be an astronaut from the time I was 3 or 4 years old’’, she said in a 2015 Nasa video interview. ‘‘I remember telling my Mom at that time, and I never deviated from what I wanted to be.’’
McClain is currently aboard the ISS. Koch, an electrical engineer, will join her on March 14 in what will be her first space flight, according to Nasa.
Space is just the latest exciting frontier Koch has conquered. Her work has taken her on expeditions to the South Pole and the Arctic.
– Washington Post Brazil’s agency for indigenous peoples has sent a rare and highrisk expedition to contact a small, isolated group in the Amazon and reunite its members with some of their relatives, saying the move is necessary to avoid bloodshed in an area near the border with Peru.
A team of nearly two dozen sponsored by the FUNAI agency has headed up the Coari River looking for the group of at least 22 people, who are members of the widespread Korubo indigenous community and live in the Javari Valley, in the northern state of Amazonas. Brazil’s army, federal police and health ministry are backing the initiative, which could take weeks.
The last time FUNAI organised such a big expedition was in 1996, also in that region, home to the biggest concentration of isolated indigenous peoples in Brazil, with at least 11 groups.
Brazilian law says that contact with isolated tribes can be used only as a last resort to preserve their lives.
Bruno Pereira, FUNAI’s coordinator for isolated indigenous peoples, who is leading the expedition, said the objective was to ease tensions between the isolated group of Korubos and a group of indigenous Matis who lived about 20km away.
The Matis contacted the Korubos in 2013, initially in a friendly manner, but the following year there was a deadly clash between the two groups, FUNAI said.
After that incident, some of the Korubos migrated from the area, and reported that those who had stayed mistakenly believed their relatives had been killed by the Matis. Some of the Korubos who left are part of FUNAI’s expedition.
Pereira said the Matis had repeatedly requested intervention by Brazil’s government because they believed the isolated Korubos would want revenge. He said the worst-case scenario was that the Korubos would fight. –AP