On Jan. 9, 2020, NASA astronaut Christina Koch celebrated her three hundredth day in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS). By the time she landed again on Earth on Feb. 6, she had damaged the file for the longest time spent in space by a lady.
That’s not the one historic achievement for the astronaut. Just a couple of months prior, Koch and one other lady astronaut, Jessica Meir, accomplished the primary all-woman spacewalk.
The spacewalk made “sure that NASA was really committed to, like I like to say, answering humanity’s call to explore by everyone,” Koch informed Space.com a yr after the momentous occasion. “And so it was just a wonderful thing to have the honor to participate in. And I think that we’re just so appreciative still to receive the support that we still receive every day about it,” she stated.
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Early life and profession
Koch was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. From a younger age, she wished to be an astronaut, and joined her center faculty’s “Rocket Club.” Trips to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida solely solidified that dream, she told Jon Evans on his podcast.
Koch attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh and accomplished a bachelor’s in electrical engineering in addition to a bachelor’s in physics. She then accomplished a Master’s in electrical engineering.
After finishing her levels, Koch joined NASA as {an electrical} engineer on the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. While at GSFC, Koch labored within the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics on devices for a number of space science missions. After her time at GSFC, Koch labored in Antarctica on the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and Palmer Station. From there, she returned to her electrical engineering roots and labored on the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, contributing to devices on the Juno spacecraft and Van Allen probes.
Life as an astronaut
In 2013, Koch was chosen as a member of NASA’s twenty first astronaut class. After six years of intense coaching, she launched on her first space mission to the ISS on March 14, 2019 from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Soyuz spacecraft. She was joined by astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin.
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In her tenure on the ISS, Koch served as a flight engineer on expeditions 59, 60 and 61. While aboard the ISS, Koch labored on a number of scientific research that coated human biology, Earth science, expertise improvement and extra. She additionally accomplished three all-woman spacewalks out of her six total spacewalks, spending a total of 42 hours and quarter-hour within the vacuum of space.
First all-woman spacewalk
Oct. 18, 2019, wasn’t initially presupposed to be a historic day. The first lady spacewalk was presupposed to happen on March twenty ninth, however a difficulty with space go well with sizes delayed that plan.
NASA’s space fits are a marvel of engineering — they’re primarily tiny, human-shaped spaceships. The most vital a part of the spacesuit is a tough plastic torso piece that holds the electronics that management all of the go well with’s techniques. An ill-fitted spacesuit can result in severe issues of safety, and reconfiguring the go well with can take as much as 12 hours. Koch and her colleague Anne McClain had been scheduled to take part in a spacewalk collectively, however there was just one spacesuit made to suit McClain or Koch, so McClain swapped locations together with her colleague Nick Hauge in order that Koch might put on the one spacesuit that match each girls.
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By October, the crew had reconfigured one other go well with to suit Jessica Mier, who then joined Koch on the first all-woman spacewalk. For greater than seven hours, the pair labored on changing a battery cost/discharge unit that didn’t activate after new lithium ion batteries had been put in.
Koch returned to Earth on Feb. 6, 2020, after having spent 328 days in space, setting the file for the longest space mission by a woman. She returned simply because the Covid-19 pandemic was starting and Americans had been getting ready for the potential for a wide-spread quarantine.
But coming again to a world on the cusp of a pandemic did not really feel as isolating it might have for Koch, she informed Boston’s WBUR radio. “You know, being under stay-at-home orders really for me has actually offered a lot more than the isolation that I experienced for 11 months on board the International Space Station … it’s allowed me to really get comfortable with my home life, to reintegrate in my home and in my neighborhood,” she stated.
Related: NASA astronaut Christina Koch reflects on 1-year anniversary of first all-woman spacewalk
Koch’s legacy
Space journey has historically been designed for males. The bodily embodiment of that truth is NASA’s space fits, which had been designed with a person’s physique in thoughts, not a lady’s. Koch’s participation within the first all-woman spacewalk was a ground-breaking accomplishment for feminine astronauts and all non-male folks world wide, alike.
“Men’s physiology, perspectives, values, measurements, comfort and ambitions have mostly been the default template for designing major human endeavors. I believe that Koch and Meir, by their sheer skill and execution, shift us closer to a template based on intelligence, agility, capability, integrity, courage and excellence,” Mae Jemison, a fellow feminine astronaut, wrote in regards to the pair in Time magazine’s “The 100 most Influential People of the Year” feature.
In December 2020, Koch was chosen as one of many astronauts who will journey to the Moon on NASA’s Artemis missions. That means she may very well be one of many first — if not the first — lady to step foot on the moon.
“To me, what [Artemis] really represents is that NASA is committed to answering humanity’s call to explore by all and for all. We’re an example of how you’re most successful when you take contributions from every single part of the world, and the planet and humanity,” Koch informed Raleigh, North Carolina’s CBS17 in regards to the choice.
