The U.S. Space Agency, NASA, is all set to conduct a marathon of spacewalks in the coming months, including one by an all-female crew.
Does this information give you a deja vu feeling? NASA announced a similar attempt in March 2019 with astronauts Christina Koch and Anne McClain. But it scrapped the plan later, citing spacesuit shortage. Both the astronauts needed medium-size torso component, but only one was available at the International Space Station (ISS) at that time.
Now that another medium hard upper torso (HUT), the part of the spacesuit shaped like a T-shirt, is ready, the first all-female spacewalk plan is back on track. However, this time astronaut Christian Koch will be paired with Jessica Meir and they are expected to conduct the spacewalk on October 21.
What is a spacewalk?
A spacewalk is any activity done by an astronaut outside a space vehicle, such as the ISS, while in space. It is also called the Extra-vehicular Activity (EVA). Astronauts go on a spacewalk to install new equipment, conduct experiments, and to carry out repairs.
Spacewalks usually last between five and eight hours, depending on the job undertaken. By going on spacewalks, astronauts can fix things by themselves instead of bringing them back to Earth to fix.
What is the current mission all about?
The spacewalk by Koch and Meir is one of ten spacewalks that NASA has planned for the rest of the year. The agency has set such an aggressive schedule in order to replace ageing nickel-hydrogen batteries on the ISS with newer lithium-ion ones. NASA astronauts started replacing these batteries in 2017, and they will complete the task this year.
What did the March all-female spacewalk fall through?
On March 29 Christian Koch and Anne McClain were to step out of the ISS and upgrade the space station’s power system.
But during her spacewalk on March 22, McClain discovered that her best spacesuit torso fit was medium, not large as the team previously thought.
There are no male or female versions for spacesuits, but only a mix-and-match collection of parts – torso, arms, gloves, etc. – in different sizes to ensure proper fit. In the past, missions have been all-male or male-female and hence this problem did not arise earlier.
So, NASA had to scrap the plan and conduct a male-female spacewalk instead on March 29. McClain was replaced by astronaut Nick Hague.
But this time around, NASA has the spacesuits ready for both the astronauts, as a new medium size configuration spacesuit was launched to the ISS earlier this year.
Picture Credit : Google