NASA All-Women Astronaut Team Creates History

Two NASA astronauts made history as they spent their workday spacewalking for 5.5 hours.

Christina Koch and Jessica Meir performed the first all-female spacewalk in the history of space travel.

The two astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station at about 7:50 a.m. to make an urgent repair to its power system. They concluded the spacewalk 7 hours and 17 minutes later, just before 3 p.m.

"Another milestone in human space exploration is officially complete!' said a tweet from NASA.

Today, history was made as @Astro_Jessica and @Astro_Christina successfully completed the first #AllWomanSpacewalk! For more than 7 hours, the duo worked in the vacuum of space to conduct @Space_Station maintenance. Get details: https://t.co/9y6Dq9OR7B. pic.twitter.com/2ZDXA2E5NE

— NASA (@NASA) October 18, 2019

Originally, NASA had planned an all-female spacewalk in March. But that event — which was to have involved Koch and NASA astronaut Anne McClain — was scrapped because there weren’t enough spacesuits of the right size available on the station. NASA was criticized for not having enough uniforms for two women to participate in a spacewalk together. 

Every woman who has ever suited up for space had a male counterpart suiting up with her.

No two women have spacewalked together, making today’s event a big first for NASA — and the world.

This is the 221st spacewalk in support of the space station's maintenance and assembly. Since cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to do a spacewalk in 1984, women have participated in 42 spacewalks. Of the 15 women who have done spacewalks, 14 have been NASA astronauts.

Throughout spaceflight history, 14 women have completed spacewalks. Today, @Astro_Jessica brought that number up to 15 as she floated outside the @Space_Station's airlock alongside @Astro_Christina for our #AllWomanSpacewalk. Watch #SpaceToGround for more: https://t.co/3U4xrjfgsW pic.twitter.com/zdYg6sfyK0

— NASA (@NASA) October 19, 2019