First all-woman space stroll sets limelight on spacesuit design
The record-setting occasion serves as a reminder that spacesuits into the future need certainly to benefit a wider selection of figures than previously expected.
PUBLISHED 18, 2019 october
Floating within the near-vacuum of room, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir are making history as they embark on the first all-women space walk, spending more than five hours outside the International Space Station on a mission to replace a failed power controller for the orbiting laboratory today.
As soon as uses much hubbub; Koch and Anne McClain had been designed to result in the historic all-woman stroll seven months right straight back, on March 29. However in a place walk a few times earlier in the day, McClain got her first in-flight experience working in the sort of spacesuit made for tasks away from place, referred to as an extravehicular mobility device, or EMU.
While she had trained in the world in both a medium and enormous form of the EMU, McClain noticed after her room stroll that the moderate form of the difficult torso that is upper most readily useful. Koch needed the size that is same therefore the other available medium components could never be properly configured for that spacewalk over time, therefore McClain switched places with fellow astronaut Nick Hague.
The swap caused an uproar, however the decision—recommended by McClain herself—was rational when it comes to situation at hand.