By Raza Mehdi
Oct 04, 2022
On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first Russian astronaut to perform a spacewalk. But it lasted only 12 minutes as his suit had expanded in the vacuum of space.
First Spacewalk
On June 3, 1965, NASA's Ed White accomplished the first U.S. spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission and spent about 20 minutes moving into space using a gas gun as a propeller.
First American Spacewalk
Image: NASA
Like other low-Earth orbit spacewalks by various astronauts, Alfred Worden became the first astronaut to perform a "Deep Space EVA" for 38-minutes in the cislunar void between Earth and Moon on August 5, 1971.
First Farthest Spacewalk
Image: NASA
On February 7, 1984, about 100 metres from the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II did the first unstrapped spacewalk for more than 5 hours. He floated free in space, guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
First Untethered Spacewalk
Image: NASA
On October 18, 2019, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir spent 7 hours and 17 minutes replacing a battery unit on the Space Station's exterior, thereby becoming the first women to go on an all-female spacewalk.
First All-Woman Spacewalk
Image: NASA
After completing his spacewalk on November 14, 1984, Astronaut Dale A. Gardner held a "For Sale" sign for the two satellites they retrieved from orbit after their Payload Assist Modules (PAM) failed to fire.
Satellites "For Sale"
Image: NASA
The Hubble Space Telescope orbits around the Earth, observing the planets, stars and galaxies, and it also needs repairments. In 1993, Astronaut F. Story Musgrave anchored on the robotic arm's end to restore the function of the telescope.
Hubble Repair Missions
Image: NASA
On May 13, 1992, NASA astronauts Richard Hieb, Thomas Akers and Pierre Thuot performed the first and only three-person spacewalk. They went out to capture a broken satellite stuck in the wrong orbit for more than two years.
Spacewalking Together
Image: NASA
On March 10, 2001, Expedition 2 astronauts Susan J. Helms and James S. Voss performed an 8-hour, 56 minute spacewalk during the STS-102 mission. It still stands as the longest EVA in history.
Longest Spacewalk
Image: NASA
The record is currently held by cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency, with 82:22 hours from 16 EVAs, followed by NASA's Michael Lopez-Alegria with 67:40 hours in 10 EVAs.
Most Spacewalks Record
Image: Wikipedia Commons