Author: SIGNE DEAN / Source: ScienceAlert
Earlier this month, the world was excited to hear that NASA had scheduled the first-ever “all-female spacewalk”. Now, an annoying equipment problem has disappointed many #WomeninSTEM enthusiasts.
Expedition 59/60 flight engineers Christina Koch and Anne McClain were going to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) on March 29 to continue upgrading batteries on one of the station’s solar arrays.
Despite wide media coverage, the scheduling of these crew members – including the fact that women would be
“It was not orchestrated to be this way,” NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz said when the news first broke.
But given the fact female astronauts have, without a doubt, been underrepresented in ISS missions and spacewalks over the years, of course everyone got super-excited.
That said, NASA did explicitly warn us that things might still change regarding this excursion.
“Spacewalk assignments may be adjusted if the flight operations team deems it necessary,” Schierholz wrote in the original press statement about the latest spacewalk schedule.
Now they have, with one of the astronauts swapped out for a male colleague due to a spacesuit sizing issue. On March 26, NASA announced that McClain would be replaced by flight engineer Nick Hague – together, they started the work on the battery upgrade in a previous spacewalk on March 22.
Some more shots of the #spacewalk on Friday – was privileged to work with my friend and colleague @NASA_Astronauts @AstroHague pic.twitter.com/KueUo7HXFm
— Anne McClain (@AstroAnnimal)
The ‘cancellation’ of the all-female spacewalk has come down to the fact that during that March 22 foray McClain discovered her best spacesuit torso fit is a medium, not large as the team previously thought.
NASA’s extravehicular activity (EVA) suits are actually considered to be “personal spacecraft” designed to…
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