NASA Will Send All-Female Astronauts For A Spacewalk For The First Time

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina H. Koch will take part in a spacewalk March 29

March 07, 2019

According to CNN, NASA confirmed that for the first time in history, an all-female crew will conduct a spacewalk at the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch will carry out the spacewalk on March 29 as part of Expedition 59. Even their ground support will be led by a female. Canadian Space Agency’s flight controller Kristen Facciol, will be on the console at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Facciol herself was one of the first people to tweet the announcement on March 1, saying: “I just found out that I’ll be on console providing support for the FIRST ALL FEMALE SPACEWALK with @AstroAnnimal and @Astro_Christina and I can not contain my excitement!!!! #WomenInSTEM #WomenInEngineering #WomenInSpace.”

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Through an email statement to CNN, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz said, “”As currently scheduled, the March 29 spacewalk will be the first with only women.” She added, “It is the second in a series of three planned spacewalks. Anne also will join Nick Hague for the March 22 spacewalk. And, of course, assignments and schedules could always change.”

“It was not orchestrated to be this way; these spacewalks were originally scheduled to take place in the fall,” Schierholz added. “In addition to the two female spacewalkers, the Lead Flight Director is Mary Lawrence, and Jackie Kagey (also a woman), is the lead EVA (spacewalk) flight controller.”

Both McClain and Koch were part of the 2013 class, half of which were women, and came from the second largest number of applications NASA ever has received — more than 6,100, said the report.

(Header Credit – Twitter, Anne McClain & Christina Koch)

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