NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara prepared for her first spacewalk, but not for the view.
O’Hara, along with SpaceX Crew-7 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, conducted her fourth all-female spacewalk on the International Space Station (ISS) on November 1, 2023. They spent 6 hours and 42 minutes maintaining the station. Replacing a bearing to allow solar panels to move.
O’Hara shared with reporters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston that everything was going well; He attributed this success to hours of training with his spacewalk partner. And he said being in a spacesuit was a moving experience.
“Nothing compares to the feeling of stepping outside, in your own little spacesuit, looking at Earth through the bubble of your helmet,” O’Hara told Space.com in a livestreamed speech today (April 15). “It’s one thing when you look out the window and look at the Earth… but then suddenly you’re caught up in the environment and you’re suspended there. [with] The world is moving beneath your feet.”
Relating to: NASA astronauts complete 4th all-female spacewalk outside the International Space Station
NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, spacesuits were designed in the 1970s, when the only people who flew into space were men. Space suits were therefore made to favor larger, stronger bodies, making it difficult for women (or smaller bodies) to operate in the suit.
The next generation of spacesuits (with many designs made by private contractors for the International Space Station and future Artemis program moon missions) will be better suited to different body sizes. But in the meantime, NASA conducted the first all-female spacewalk with EMUs with Christina Koch and Jessica Meir in October 2019 and aims to continue.
Relating to: NASA says this month’s rare female spacewalk won’t be the last
Although O’Hara was one of the lucky few who could see Earth through a spacesuit, he missed a rare view of a planet in space by just a few days: a full-fledged image that passed over the United States, Canada, and parts of Mexico on April 8. solar eclipse. Space station astronauts also witnessed it.
Although he had returned to Earth by then, O’Hara was unable to see the totality in person as a slight delay in landing delayed his arrival at JSC from the landing site in Kazakhstan. He had originally planned to leave Houston under the partial eclipse to watch the totality display elsewhere. But instead, he went outside JSC to watch the ongoing partial eclipse.
“I know they put on a good show on the space station,” O’Hara said in response to Space.com’s question, adding that he somewhat regretted not being able to see the eclipse. However, the sun was also prominent in other ways during his time in space; Auroras caused by high solar activity were seen regularly.
“We saw a lot of beautiful aurora during our mission… this one was especially beautiful, watching the space station fly through the aurora was one of my favorite things.”
O’Hara, who trained as a submarine engineer, received a call about his first days at sea while working on his new job in space. He said one of his favorite moments was receiving a video from a friend’s team on a research expedition in the Pacific Ocean.
O’Hara recalled that her friend “shared a video of a baby octopus hatching on the sea floor there.” Later that day, the NASA astronaut found himself flying over the area of water where the video was shot.
“There’s a moment where I’m right in the dome,” O’Hara said, referring to the wrap-around window used for docking with the ISS and photography. “I’m in space, on this incredible space station that we’re building. And somewhere under all that water, there’s a baby octopus living its first few days of life.
“This is happening in a million different ways all over the planet,” he continued. “This is a recognition of how complex, diverse and beautiful the Earth and all the life that supports it are.”
RELATED STORIES:
– NASA astronauts completed their 4th all-female spacewalk outside the International Space Station
— NASA astronauts describe epic all-female spacewalk in Washington Post column
— Pioneering women in space: A gallery of astronaut’s firsts
NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, regularly fly astronauts in each other’s spacecraft for policy reasons; O’Hara’s Soyuz spacecraft seat was part of a set of four announced by NASA in mid-2022. (NASA and Roscosmos also require a backup type of spacecraft to be available in case of a glitch.)
However, O’Hara launched and landed with different Russian-led crews due to ISS staffing requirements. On September 15, 2023, he went into space with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub on MS-24, designated Soyuz. O’Hara spent six months in space, but left before her Russian cosmonaut colleagues, who are now in space for a one-year mission.
O’Hara returned home on MS-24 on April 6, along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya (Belarus’ first woman in space).
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya’s return to Earth completed their two-week mission that began on March 23. They launched Soyuz MS-25 together with NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, who will stay in space for six months. The launch of Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and Dyson was delayed by two days due to a (quickly resolved) battery issue that caused a rare launch pad abort on March 21.