NASA Astronaut Meir Says Preparing For First Ever All-Female Spacewalk Friday

Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published October 17, 2019 | 05:16 PM

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir has said on her Twitter account that she and fellow astronaut Christina Koch were getting ready for the first-ever all-female spacewalk on Friday, the goal of which will be to and upgrade batteries for the International Power Station's power system

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th October, 2019) NASA astronaut Jessica Meir has said on her Twitter account that she and fellow astronaut Christina Koch were getting ready for the first-ever all-female spacewalk on Friday, the goal of which will be to and upgrade batteries for the International Power Station's power system.

The spacewalk was initially scheduled to take place more than six months ago, with astronauts Kristina Koch and Anne McClain doing the honors, but was delayed because NASA did not have enough correctly sized spacesuits. On Tuesday, NASA said that everything was ready and that the first all-female spacewalk would be conducted on either Thursday or Friday to replace a failed battery charge-discharge unit.

"Gearing up for Friday's spacewalk to help the ground teams repair one of the battery channels with @Astro_Christina [Koch]," Meir said on Wednesday.

The spacewalk will be broadcast by NASA and is set to start no earlier than 10:30 GMT on October 18.

The spacewalk will be Koch's fourth and Meir's first. They are to become the 14th and 15th female astronauts to maneuver outside the space station. Previously, women were always teamed up with a male counterpart during spacewalks.

The first woman to conduct a spacewalk was Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1984.

There are currently six people on the space station: Koch, Meir and fellow NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan; Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka; and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano.