Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping made history on November 7 when she became the country's first woman to do a spacewalk, according to the national space agency.
At the moment, Wang and Zhai Zhigang, two of the three members at China's new Tiangong space station, successfully completed the 6.5-hour spacewalk in the early hours of the morning of November 8, according to the China Manned Space Agency. The third astronaut of the Shenzhou-13 members, Ye Guangfu, stayed on the space station to support the spacewalk.
It's the first time the astronauts have left the space station since their arrival on October 16. Shortly after stepping out of the spaceship, Wang waved to audiences on Earth and said she felt great. During the spacewalk, the team fixed a suspension (悬挂) device and connectors to the station's robotic arm. They also tested the safety of supporting equipment (设备), including the spacesuit produced by China.
Wang is China's second woman in space, after Liu Yang made history by joining the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in 2012. Before Wang, only 15 women around the world had done spacewalks since 1984, when Soviet astronaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first to do so. So far, most women spacewalkers have been American NASA astronauts.
The Shenzhou-13 members will do one or two more spacewalks during their six-month stay at the space station. This is not the first time astronauts have worked at Tiangong space station. In September, three other Chinese astronauts successfully completed a three-month stay at the station. By December 2022, China plans to have the station ready to be used—a great target that seems to be possible.
