(1 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY: MUST CREDIT NASA
++COMMENTARY AT SOURCE++
++PART MUTE++
NASA – MUST CREDIT NASA
International Space Station – 1 May 2025
1. Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers are readied for the spacewalk
2. Hatch closing
3. Anne McClain emerges from the hatch
4. Nichole Ayers emerges from the hatch
5. Various of McClain and Ayers working
STORYLINE:
An astronaut who missed out on the first all-female spacewalk because of a spacesuit sizing issue got her chance six years later on Thursday.
NASA’s Anne McClain emerged from the International Space Station alongside Nichole Ayers. Both military officers and pilots, they launched to the orbiting lab in March to replace NASA’s two stuck astronauts, who are now back home.
Minutes before floating out, McClain noticed strands of string on the index finger of her right glove. Mission Control briefly delayed the start of the spacewalk to make sure her glove was safe.
During their spacewalk, the pair will prepare the space station for another new set of solar panels and move an antenna on the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) complex.
The space station had to be raised into a slightly higher orbit Wednesday evening to avoid space junk: part of a 20-year-old Chinese rocket.
McClain, an Army colonel and helicopter pilot, should have taken part in the first all-female spacewalk in 2019, but there weren’t enough medium-size suits. The first women-only spacewalk was by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. The latest was the fifth all-female spacewalk in 60 years of spacewalking.
Of NASA’s 47 active astronauts, 20 are women. And of the seven astronauts currently living at the space station, McClain and Ayers are the only women. It was the first spacewalk for Ayers, an Air Force major and former fighter pilot, and the third for McClain.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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