For the first time, only female astronauts went out into outer space: who are they

American astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir make the first ever spacewalk exclusively by female personnel, writes with the BBC. According to NASA, during the mission they will replace one of the external power supplies of the International Space Station, which will approximately take five and a half hours.

Astronauts went beyond the ISS around 7: 30 by EST. To complete the task, they need to move to the opposite compartment of the station, Port 6, and replace the failed element, which will then be sent for study to Earth by the SpaceX Dragon cargo shuttle.

.@Astro_Christina and @Astro_Jessica have extended their scheduled 5.5-hour spacewalk today and will accomplish some get-ahead tasks on the space station. #AskNASA | https://t.co/yuOTrZ4Jut pic.twitter.com/ro1mrtuh2f

- International Space Station (@Space_Station) October 18, 2019

Until this day, there were 13 women in space, including Koch, for whom this is the fifth space walk. Meir became the fourteenth, and the first was the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya.

On July 25, 1984, Savitskaya, paired with Vladimir Dzhanibekov, went into outer space from the Soviet space station Salyut-7 and spent 3 hours and 35 minutes there.

Who went into space?

Initially, a fully female mission was planned for the end of March this year. Christina Koch was supposed to perform it in tandem with the American Anne McClain, but McClain’s participation was not successful from the very beginning.

At first, she did not fit the size of a spacesuit to go into outer space, and in August she came under investigation on charges of first crime evercommitted in space: her same-sex spouse stated that Anne, being in space, had unauthorized access to her bank account.

On the subject: Dreamed of space since childhood: how a Russian engineer from New York makes space suits for NASA

As a result, the lucky lot fell to Jessica Meir. She is 42 years old, she has a degree in physiology and biology of the ocean. This is her first space flight, Meir arrived on the ISS in September this year as a flight engineer.

Kristina Koch 40 years old, she is a much more experienced astronaut. It has been on the ISS since March of this year, and it has already counted four missions in outer space. By education, Koch is a physicist and electrical engineer. The first years in NASA she spent working in the field of scientific development.

Last Tuesday, NASA also presented the layout of a new spacesuit for the next mission to the moon. Its main feature is that, thanks to its movable structure, it can be adapted to any astronaut figure, regardless of height, size and shape.

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