NASA astronauts step outside space station to perform the 5th all-female spacewalk

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — 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.

Outside for nearly six hours, the spacewalkers prepared the station for another new set of solar panels and moved an antenna on the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) complex. They were welcomed back inside by the space station's commander, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.

“We are so happy to have you back, and your dinner is ready so don’t worry about it,” Onishi said.

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.

Koch soon will become the first woman to fly to the moon. She and three male astronauts will fly around the moon without landing next year under NASA's Artemis program, the successor to Apollo.

Men still outnumber women in NASA's astronaut corps.

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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