First All Female Spacewalk Successfully Completed

On 18 October 2019, NASA Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir completed the first all female spacewalk. Their task was to replace a failed power controller that regulates battery charging to power the International Space Station. Both astronauts are members of the eight-member 2013 NASA astronaut class, which was the first to include equal numbers of men and women.

This milestone adds to the growing list of women's accomplishments in spaceflight, which includes:

• Valentina Tereshkova - 1963, First Woman in Space
• Sally Ride - 1983, First American Woman in Space
• Svetlana Savitskaya - 1984, First Woman Spacewalk
• Kathryn D. Sullivan - 1984, First American Woman Spacewalk
• Helen Sharman - 1991, First British Astronaut
• Roberta Bondar - 1992, First Canadian Woman in Space
• Chiaki Mukai - 1994, First Japanese Woman in Space
• Claudie Haigneré - 1996, First French Woman in Space
• Eileen Collins - 1999, First Woman Space Shuttle Commander
• Peggy Whitson - 2007, First Woman ISS Commander
• Liu Yang - 2012, First Chinese Woman in Space
• Samantha Cristoforetti - 2014, First Italian Woman in Space
• Christina Koch - 2020, Longest Continuous Time in Space by a Woman

This historic milestone was celebrated worldwide and inspires future ambitions to put the first woman on the moon, and thereafter, Mars.