Space flight History is Rewritten by Two Women

Mankind’ first successful spacewalk was in 1965. After half a century, the world’s first women’s spacewalk mission ended successfully. It is said to have written a new history of space development.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tweeted on Friday, October 18th   that U.S. female astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir began spacewalking at 7:38 a.m. to replace faulty parts of the International Space Station battery and successfully returned to the ISS after about seven and a half hours of work.

The spacewalk was planned to be conducted by a team of female astronauts in March. However, they were asked to be replaced by a male astronaut due to the lack of a space suit that would fit to women. By solving this problem, they could finally succeed.

This mission was the first spacewalk that was completed only by women. The first spacewalk in human history took place in 1965. At the time, all of the teams’ tasks were made up of men. It was in 1984 when a woman went on a spacewalk for the first time. Svetlana Savitskaya, a former Soviet astronaut, traveled in space with a male astronaut under the baton of a male controller.

The goal of the spacewalk mission was to replace the power controller called “BCDU,” which is in charge of charging and discharging batteries. The ISS does not receive sunlight directly in orbit 300 to 400 kilometers above the earth. Because of this, it uses batteries to supply electricity. BCDU controls the amount of charge and power supply of such batteries. Although there is no significant impact on testing or operating ISS facilities due to failure of BCDU, it is heard that one of the three lithium-ion batteries does not work. It took about 7 hours and 17 minutes to correct this problem.

With the success of the female astronauts in the field, experts say it is a monumental event that shows that women have become equal to men in space development. They say they are moving away from the supporting role of male astronauts and are becoming more and more self-reliant. In fact, at NASA’s “Artemis,” women are planning to conduct lunar missions on par with men

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