International Space Station to see its sixth all-woman spacewalk today: Here's a look at the other five

NASA has announced that its astronaut Jessica Meir and European Space Agency’s Sophie Adenot are ‘go’ for performing what will be only the sixth all-female spacewalk today. At 8:30 am EDT, the two astronauts will leave the confines of the International Space Station to carry out a number of tasks during an extravehicular activity that is expected to last six-and-a-half hours. This will be the fourth EVA performed by the members of Expedition 75, while for Meir and Adenot, this will be the seventh and third, respectively.

During the spacewalks, the pair will replace a spacecraft navigational aid on the space station and install jumper cables to improve data relay systems. They will also prepare the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer—a cosmic particle detector—for future maintenance and replace a high-definition camera of the station's truss.

With the planned tasks spread over a number of spots over the station, Meir will attach herself to the latching end effector of the Canadarm2 via a portable foot restraint. NASA astronaut Anil Menon, who was Meir’s previous spacewalk partner, will operate the robotic arm from inside the station, guiding Meir to the worksites along the station's starboard truss structure. Meanwhile, Adenot, who recently became the first Frenchwoman to perform a spacewalk, will remain attached to the station on her own via a tether, with NASA's Jack Hathaway monitoring the external activities to ensure that both spacewalkers remain safe.

A brief history of all-female spacewalks

Even though this will be the 284th spacewalk outside the space station since it was deployed in 1998, the fact that this is only the sixth women-exclusive spacewalk speaks to the historical rarity of the occurrence. That said, after the first one was carried out by Meir herself along with Christina Koch in October 2019, the duo performed a couple more in quick succession in January 2020. Koch later went on to become a member of the Artemis II crew and recently received the Congressional Space Medal of Freedom. Meir, who is the current space station commander, will soon hold the distinction of being involved in four of the six EVAs featuring only women. The conclusion of the spacewalk will also see her move into third place for the total number of spacewalks performed by NASA women, behind Peggy Whitson (10) and Suni Williams (9). 

After a bit of a hiatus for all-female EVAs for almost four years, the fourth all-female EVA took place in November 2023. It was performed by NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara. The fifth all-female spacewalk took place in May last year, when NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers stepped into the vacuum of space. Besides EVAs outside the ISS, women have a history of spacewalking since 1984. In July of that year Russian cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya broke new ground for women, followed by American Kathryn Sullivan in October.

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