Koch, Meir Complete 7-Hour All-Female Spacewalk After 2 Medium Suit Torsos Enabled Pairing
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · May 24
Koch, Meir Complete 7-Hour All-Female Spacewalk After 2 Medium Suit Torsos Enabled Pairing
5 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · May 24
7 hours and 17 minutes outside the ISS made Christina Koch and Jessica Meir the first all-female spacewalk team, as they replaced a failed battery charge-discharge unit on Oct. 18, 2019.
Two medium-size hard upper torso suit components made the pairing possible; in March 2019, NASA had only one ready, forcing Anne McClain off a planned all-female walk with Koch.
That earlier March 29 spacewalk still went ahead with Koch and Nick Hague after McClain, who had used a medium torso on March 22, judged it safer not to switch suit sizing.
The October walk also included get-ahead work on ESA's Bartolomeo platform, while Meir became the 15th woman ever to perform a spacewalk.
NASA says its next-generation AxEMU suit is being built to fit a far wider body range, aiming to avoid the sizing constraints that shaped the 2019 milestone.
Seven years after a sizing issue, are next-gen spacesuits truly solving the fit and injury problems that plague astronauts?
As AI and robotics advance, will dangerous human spacewalks soon become a relic of the past for deep space exploration?
With NASA's moon missions now solely dependent on Axiom Space, is America's return to the lunar surface at risk?