NASA’s First All-Female Spacewalk In History Is Happening On March 29

By Amit Chowdhry ● Mar 17, 2019

The first all-female spacewalk in history is scheduled to be happening outside the International Space Station (ISS) on March 29. Spacewalks — which are also known as extravehicular activities (EVAs) — are routine operations but there are risks. While conducting spacewalks, astronauts put on heavy spacesuits and step outside of the ISS.

Anne McClain (Lt Col, U.S. Army) and Christina Hammock Koch will be performing the spacewalk to replace old batteries. And two women on the ground in Mission Control — Mary Lawrence (lead flight director) and Jackie Kagey (lead flight controller) — are going to provide guidance during the operation. And Canadian Space Agency flight controller Kristen Facciol will be on the console at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston:

Since the ISS launched 18 years ago, over 210 spacewalks have happened so far. Even though two female crew members lived aboard the ISS before, this is the first time that a women-led spacewalk operation has happened. And it is by coincidence that this is Women’s History Month.

“It was not orchestrated to be this way,” said NASA representative Stephanie Schierholz in a statement to Business Insider. This spacewalk was expected to happen in the fall of 2018.

Left: McClain, Right: Koch – Photo Credit: NASA

Going forward, there will likely be more all-women spacewalks since NASA’s new batches of astronauts and human spaceflight divisions are largely comprised of women.

“All three NASA astronauts who will be on the space station are from the 2013 astronaut class that was 50% women. And the most recent class of flight directors was 50% women,” added Schierholz. McClain and Koch were both in NASA’s 2013 astronaut class. That class saw the second largest number of applications that NASA ever received at more than 6,100.

Currently, the space station is powered by four sets of rectangular solar cells. And the lab stays afloat as it zooms around the world at 17,500 mph and circles Earth every 90 minutes. This means it is in darkness about half the time. So to keep the power flowing during orbital night, batteries store up excess solar energy. And now those batteries are more than 12-years-old. So NASA is replacing four sets of the 12 batteries — one per set of solar cells. Fortunately, the newer batteries are lithium-ion types and can store about twice the energy so six will be swapped rather than 12.

To replace the batteries, a robotic arm is used and it requires human hands to unbolt the old batteries to swap in the new ones. And there is tremendous risk because there is potential for the spacesuits to get damaged due to debris or there could be mechanical problems. While Koch was being interviewed to become an astronaut, she said that Peggy Whitson was a personal hero of hers. Whitson performed 10 spacewalks during her career.

“I think that my career and perhaps me being on the International Space Station can really show women and girls and everybody that hey, we’re not just sitting at the table, we’re leading the table. And there’s no excuses: You can accomplish whatever you want to,” said McClain during a live broadcast of a phone call to the space station on International Women’s Day via Business Insider. “You just got to throw your hat in the ring. You’ve got to get out there and do it.”

NASA TV will be broadcasting Koch and McClain’s spacewalk starting at 6:30 AM ET on March 29. You can watch it in the video below: