Meir (left) and Koch (right) working on the ISS. Image: NASA
The first spacewalk with an all-woman crew is currently underway outside the International Space Station (ISS).NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history when they exited the station just before 8AM ET on Friday, and they are slated to work on the exterior of the craft for five to six hours.
You can watch their progress, along with commentary from NASA, at this livestream. Koch has red stripes on her spacesuit, and footage from her helmet camera will display the number 18. Meir, who is conducting her very first space walk, is wearing a suit without stripes and her camera footage will be labeled with the number 11.
Advertisement
The crew is working on replacing a faulty battery charger, and preparing parts of the station’s exterior for future extravehicular activities (EVAs).The spacewalk marks the 221st time that astronauts have left the safety of the ISS to perform EVAs, but it is the only time in history that both space walkers are women.The historic nature of the event has attracted an enormous amount of public attention, with thousands of people tuning into the livestream at the time of writing. NASA is fielding questions on Twitter using the hashtag #AskNASA, with commentators on the livestream responding, in particular, to grade school classrooms across the United States.“There are a lot of people who derive motivation from inspiring stories of people who look like them,” Koch said in an interview in early October. “I think it’s an important story to tell.”