Plans for the first all-female spacewalk in history have been scrapped for lack of a second space suit, the US space agency Nasa says.
Nasa's first all-female spacewalk scrapped over spacesuit sizes Photo: Supplied / Nasa
Christina Koch and Anne McClain had been scheduled to step outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday to install batteries.
But it turned out they both needed a medium-size spacesuit and only one was ready for use.
Koch will now exit the ISS with male colleague Nick Hague instead.
She will wear the medium-size suit used by McClain on a spacewalk with Hague last week.
McClain trained in both medium and large-size spacesuits but only realised after her actual spacewalk that the medium-size suit fitted her best, Nasa said.
She is scheduled to perform her next spacewalk, on 8 April, with another male astronaut, David Saint-Jacques.
What exactly is the problem with the suits?
The issue relates to the spacesuit's hard upper torso or "shirt".
Nasa has two medium-size hard upper torsos on the ISS but only one of them has been properly configured for a spacewalk.
To get the other ready would have taken hours and Nasa decided it would be easier and safer to change the astronauts.
Brandi Dean, a spokeswoman for the Johnson Space Center in Houston, explained that size requirements could change once astronauts were in space.
"Individuals' sizing needs may change when they are [in] orbit, in response to the changes living in microgravity can bring about in a body," she was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
We’ve seen your tweets about spacesuit availability for Friday’s spacewalk. To clarify, we have more than 1 medium size spacesuit torso aboard, but to stay on schedule with @Space_Station upgrades, it’s safer & faster to change spacewalker assignments than reconfigure spacesuits. pic.twitter.com/tPisBHaF2p
— NASA (@NASA) March 26, 2019
- BBC
