Stream the First All-Women Spacewalk Live On NASA TV
A mission by American astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.
On Friday morning, US astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will perform the first-ever all-women spacewalk. The mission was originally planned for March 29, but due to difficulties maneuvering in a spacesuit too large for Koch, NASA rescheduled the walk. The historic feat will see both female astronauts leaving the International Space Station to replace a failed power controller on the exterior, and can be live streamed via the official NASA TV channel on YouTube, which you can access above. Coverage will commence at 6:30 am EST on Friday October 18, with the spacewalk itself starting at 7:50 am EST.
The spacewalk tomorrow marks a genuinely historic moment not just for women around the globe but for all mankind. Though there has already been more than 200 spacewalks outside of the ISS to date, all of them have been conducted by either two men or a man and a woman. In fact, women only account for roughly 10 percent of the people that have ever gone to space. “I think this achievement stands on the shoulders of generations of women who have been working to enter these professions,”said Margaret Weitekamp, curator and department chair of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Department.
For more space-related news, NASA has unveiled its next-generation spacesuits for the Artemis Program, returning to the surface of the Moon.