An astronaut that missed the first entirely female space promenade due to a spatial pricing problem had a chance six years later on Thursday.
Anne McClain de la NASA emerged from the international space station alongside Nichole Ayers. The two military officers and pilots, they launched into the orbit laboratory in March to replace the two astronauts from NASA, who are now back home.
A few minutes before floating, McClain noticed strands of string on the index of his straight glove. Control of the mission briefly delayed the start of space to ensure that his glove was safe.
During their space march, the pair will prepare the space station for another new set of solar panels and move an antenna on the 260 mile high (420 kilometers high) complex.
The space station had to be raised in a slightly higher orbit on Wednesday evening to avoid space waste: part of a 20 -year -old Chinese rocket.
McClain, army colonel and helicopter pilot, should have participated in the first entirely female space step in 2019, but there was not enough medium -sized costumes. The first spacewalk reserved for women was Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. The last was the fifth entirely female space walk in 60 years of space rally.
Koch will soon become the first woman to fly to the moon. She and three male astronauts will fly around the moon without landing next year as part of the NASA Artemis program, Apollo’s successor.
Men are even more numerous than women in the body of NASA astronauts.
Of the 47 active astronauts from NASA, 20 are women. And out of the seven astronauts who currently live at the space station, McClain and Ayers are the only women. It was the first space step for Ayers, an Air Force major and an old fighter pilot, and the third for McClain.
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