Spacewalkers make history a few days early
The world’s first all-female spacewalking team has made history, replacing a broken part of the International Space Station’s power grid.
As Nasa astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir successfully completed the job with spanners, screwdrivers and power-grip tools, it marked the first time in half a century of spacewalking that men weren’t part of the action.
The pair insisted that they were just doing their jobs after years of training, following in the footsteps of women who paved the way.
America’s first female spacewalker from 35 years ago, Kathy Sullivan, said it was good to finally have enough women in the astronaut corps and trained for spacewalking for this to happen.
Nasa leaders, politicians, Girl Scouts and others also cheered Koch and Meir on. Parents sent messages of thanks and encouragement via social media. Nasa included some in its TV coverage of the spacewalk.
Nasa originally wanted to conduct an all-female spacewalk during the last northern spring, but did not have enough medium-size spacesuits ready to go until the summer.
Koch and Meir were supposed to install more new batteries during a spacewalk next week, but ventured out three days early to deal with an equipment failure that occurred last weekend.
It was the second such failure of a battery charger this year, puzzling engineers and putting a hold on future battery installations for the station’s solar power system.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine watched the big event unfold. ‘‘We have the right people doing the right job at the right time,’’ he said. ‘‘They are an inspiration to people all over the world, including me.’’
The spacewalkers’ main job was to replace a faulty 19-year-old charge-regulating device for one of three new batteries installed last week during a spacewalk by Koch and Andrew Morgan.
As the seven-hour spacewalk yesterday drew to a close, Mission Control informed the astronauts that the new charger seemed to be working and the station was back to full power.
Spacewalking is widely considered the most dangerous assignment in orbit. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, who operated the station’s robot arm during yesterday’s spacewalk, almost drowned in 2013 when his helmet flooded with water from his suit’s cooling system.
The world’s first spacewalker on March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, died last week. Nasa astronaut Ed White became the first US spacewalker less than three months after Leonov’s feat.
Women did not follow them out the hatch until 1984. The first was Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya. Sullivan followed three months later.