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  • NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir

  • just made history as participants in the first-ever all-female spacewalk.

  • And it’s been a long time coming.

  • Now you may recall that this historic event was originally scheduled for earlier this year,

  • with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch.

  • Yet plans got derailed when a last minute size adjustment required a suit change.

  • The spacesuitsotherwise known as Extravehicular Mobility Unitsare actually made of component parts:

  • three hard upper torso sizes, four leg sizes, seven lower arm sizes, two waist sizes, and two boot sizes.

  • With the variety of customizations, they can take up to 12 hours to assemble.

  • Of the six hard upper torsos on the ISS, one medium and one large were ready for the March 29 spacewalk.

  • However, it was decided that a medium upper torso actually fit McClain better,

  • after she’d used one during a previous spacewalk.

  • And since spacewalking is one of the most dangerous tasks that an astronaut has to complete,

  • having a suit that fits is critical.

  • That’s because spacesuits are like mini spacecraft,

  • providing life support, battery power, communications systems, and radiation protection.

  • So with only one medium suit prepped for the walk,

  • NASA was forced to switch McClain with fellow astronaut Nick Hague,

  • who more comfortably fit the large suit.

  • The decision caused an uproar, as many believed that NASA didn’t have enough sizes available

  • for their female astronauts, but the reality is there was another medium suit on board.

  • Assembling it, however, would have meant missing their mission window.

  • But this time, the two medium suits were prepped and ready to go, so Koch and Meir were able to make history.

  • And this spacewalk couldn’t have come at a better time.

  • NASA is in the process of replacing its original 48 nickel-hydrogen batteries

  • with 24 lithium-ion power packs, which will better serve the power supply onboard the ISS.

  • Most critically, following the spacewalk on October 11th, 2019,

  • a battery power system known as the Battery Charge/Discharge Unit

  • had failed to connect to the newly installed lithium batteries.

  • The BCDU’s regulate the amount of charge put into the batteries connected to the station’s solar arrays,

  • providing an additional power source when the station is in Earth’s shadow.

  • While this activation failure didn’t endanger the welfare of the ISS crew,

  • experiments or day-to-day operations, the station was still experiencing a loss of additional power.

  • So Koch and Meir’s mission was to replace the defective unit with one of the three spares onboard the ISS.

  • This was Koch’s fourth walk and Meir’s first,

  • and in the 54 years since the first spacewalk took place,

  • only a small amount of participants have been women.

  • But those numbers may soon go up.

  • Both Koch and Meir’s 2013 astronaut class was 50% female,

  • and 12 out of 38 of NASA’s active astronauts are women.

  • And that’s not the only historic aspect here, either.

  • When Koch returns to Earth next February, she will have spent 328 days in space,

  • breaking the record for longest spaceflight for a female astronaut of any nationality.

  • Jessica Meir: “What were doing now shows all of the work that went in for the decades prior,

  • all of the women that worked to get us where we are today.”

  • For more space videos, check out our Countdown to Launch playlist where we cover rockets,

  • their payloads, and more, like the Psyche mission, where NASA is sending an orbiter to explore a metal asteroid.

  • Make sure to subscribe to Seeker and thanks for watching.

NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir

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