All-female spacewalk canceled for lack of spacesuits
MELBOURNE, Fla. – What was intended to be a historic occasion for NASA and humankind, the first allfemale spacewalk, was scuttled because of a lack of spacesuits aboard the International Space Station.
The spacewalk, scheduled for Friday, will be conducted instead by a man and a woman – NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch.
Koch was originally supposed to conduct the walk with American astronaut Anne McClain. McClain is now tentatively scheduled to perform her second spacewalk with Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques on April 8.
Why the change-up? There’s only one spacesuit that best fits both female astronauts.
“McClain learned during her first spacewalk that a medium-size hard upper torso – essentially the shirt of the spacesuit – fits her best,” NASA said Monday. “Because only one mediumsize torso can be made ready by Friday, March 29, Koch will wear it.”
Friday will mark the second in a series of three spacewalks for the Expedition 59 crew. The first spacewalk, done by Hague and McClain on March 22, set out to install lithium-ion batteries for one pair of the station’s solar arrays. Hague and Koch will finish replacing the old nickel-hydrogen batteries with the advanced lithium-ion batteries during the second spacewalk.
Friday’s spacewalk is scheduled to start at 8:20 a.m. EST. Live coverage will begin at 6:30 a.m. on NASA TV.
This will be the 215th spacewalk from the space station. If everything goes according to plan, Koch will be the 14th woman to perform a spacewalk.