Krysthea Charizze Abagon

A three-time spacewalker and an astronaut who missed her first one due to a spacesuit malfunction took part in the historic fifth all-female U.S. Spacewalk 93 on Thursday, May 1.

Photos Courtesy of NASA.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, who are both military officers and pilots, were launched to the International Space Station to perform maintenance tasks. 

The spacewalk began at 8:40 a.m. ET and lasted for approximately 6.5 hours. 

Tethered by only a thin metal cable, the two women exit the ISS  to relocate an antenna on the 260-mile-high complex and install a mounting bracket for a new set of solar panels.

At 9:05 a.m ET, the two carried their tools and equipment where they first assembled the attachment hardware for the seventh pair of International Space Station Rollout Solar Arrays, or IROSA, which will be installed on a commercial resupply services mission later this year.

Afterward, McClain and Ayers went to the P3 truss segment located at the left side of the ISS and relocated an antenna used by Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo vehicles when they came to resupply the space station.

"With this year being the 25th anniversary of a continuous human presence in space, it seems fitting that we are continuing to upgrade the ISS to keep it alive through 2030," Ayers said to mission control after she was back in the airlock.

According to former NASA astronaut commander Terry Virts, these women had to undergo rigorous upper-body training to be able to move around, gripping and pulling themselves with pressurized gloves. 

“Spacewalks are physically and mentally demanding, requiring complete focus for several hours, including [prep] and recovery,” Virts said.

This EVA was the 93rd spacewalk staged from the U.S. Quest airlock and the fifth all-female pair following the inaugural Christina Koch–Jessica Meir EVA in October 2019 (for which McClain had originally been slated) and last November’s Jasmin Moghbeli–Loral O’Hara outing, which lasted six hours and forty-two minutes.

Currently, among 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.
McClain, an Army colonel and helicopter pilot, made her third spacewalk; Ayers, an Air Force major and former F-15 instructor, made her first. 

In a space long dominated by men, these astronauts prove that women continue to walk and leap forward to create history.

Looking ahead, NASA plans to launch the remaining IROSA panels on a CRS mission in late 2025, with outfitting EVAs through 2026; veteran Christina Koch, who flew the first women-only EVA, is slated to become the first woman to orbit the Moon on Artemis II in 2025.