On July 25 1984, Soviet’s Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a spacewalk and it has been almost 35 years. Now on March 29, NASA will conduct the first-all female spacewalk. American astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch will carry out the spacewalk at the International Space Station. The Expedition 59 which will be held to replace batteries that were installed last summer and this spacewalk may last for about seven hours.
The flight director Mary Lawrence and Kristen Facciol will provide the ground support in the US space agency’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
The month March as the Women’s History Month is being celebrated by the NASA, has a dedicated page which provides information on women working in the various fields such as engineering, space, mathematics, etc at the space agency.
Sally Ride who was a NASA astronaut was the first American woman in space. She launched in space along with four other crewmates on mission STS-7 in 1983.
Since December 1998 a total of 213 spacewalks have been performed so far at the International Space Station. In the last year, around eight spacewalks were held and the longest lasted for about eight hours and 13 minutes.
(Image Courtesy: The Indian Express)