NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir create history

Two women astronauts from NASA, Christina Koch and Jessica Mier, created history on Friday, October 18, as they ventured into space for a first of its kind, all-women spacewalk. They took the spacewalk outside the International Space Station to replace the battery charge-discharge unit (BCDU). They spent seven hours in the vacuum of space as they replaced the failed power control unit of the International Space Station. 

US President Donald Trump hails women 

The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, in a video conference, congratulated Koch and Mier for accomplishing the work successfully. He said, "You are very brave, brilliant women”. According to media reports, both Christina Koch and Jessica Mier have known each other or a very long time. They are best friends in real life and colleagues now.

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Democratic party’s member Kamala Harris also wished the two women 

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The last spacewalk 

The last spacewalk was taken by Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan on October 11 and it was exactly seven hours and one-minute long. Another spacewalk was scheduled after that which was supposed to take place on October 16. This walk would have featured Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir, however, the plan got changed and the spacewalk was shifted from October 18 with Christina Koch and Jessica Mier.  

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The need to take spacewalks 

A long walk is necessary as the batteries that need to be changed are located in the extreme end of the station’s port truss. Given the complex location of the batteries, the 58-foot (17-meter) long robot arm in the space station is also unable to reach in this place. Thus, many spacewalks are being carried out by the engineers to replace the 12 old nickel-hydrogen batteries with six new lithium-ion batteries.

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