Nasa: Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have made the first all-female spacewalk

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Space: Nasa's female astronauts talk about spacewalks, inspiration and a Moon trip

Nasa Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir have made the first all-female spacewalk.

The astronauts left the International Space Station (ISS) to replace a battery.

Christina was set to go on the first female spacewalk earlier this year with Anne McClain.

However, the mission was cancelled due to one of the spacesuits being too big.

This is the first time two women have made a scheduled spacewalk together, despite it being 35 years since the first female made a spacewalk; that was Russian Svetlana Savitskaya, who went outside the USSR's Salyut 7 space station for three hours, 35 minutes on 25 July 1984.

Did you know?

The first woman to do a spacewalk was cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, almost 35 years ago.

Image source, NASA
Image caption,

The astronauts getting suited up for the spacewalk

Who are they?

Christina is an engineer who grew up in Jacksonville in the United States, and studied Science in Electrical Engineering and Physics at university.

She joined the ISS earlier this year in March, and is set to break the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, when she returns with an expected total of 328 days in space.

Jessica is a biologist who grew up in Maine in the US, and enjoys skiing, hiking and scuba diving.

Image source, @Astro_Christina/Twitter/Nasa
Image caption,

Jessica giving Christina a fist bump before her scheduled spacewalk

She specialises in marine biology and has researched emperor penguins, elephant seals and the high‐flying bar-headed goose.

This will be Jessica's first ever spacewalk. Go ladies!