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NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch have completed work to change the batteries on the International Space Station's solar power grid in what was the third ever all-woman spacewalk.
The flight engineers accomplished their
milestone first spacewalk
during an initial mission to swap faulty batteries on the station's exterior back in October.
Monday's mission marked the third time the women have worked together on a spacewalk.
Image:NASA astronauts Christina Koch (left) and Jessica Meir (right). Pic: NASA
As the spacewalk began their colleague Andrew Morgan stated from within the station: "To our astro-sister, we wish you the best of luck!"
The replacement lithium-ion batteries on the International Space Station (ISS) are more efficient than the nickel-hydrogen batteries which are part of the station's solar power system.
When the orbit of the ISS takes it to the dark side of the Earth the energy stores in the batteries is used to keep its systems running.
The first all-female spacewalk was originally scheduled to take place in March but was
cancelled
due to spacesuit availability on the space station.
After the historic mission was completed, US President
**Donald Trump congratulated the women **
by calling them and asking: "This is President Donald Trump, do you hear me?"
He also asked them what they would like to tell young women listening in, to which they responded: "We don't want to take too much credit as there have been many female spacewalkers before us.
"We are really just doing our job."
However they said they recognised it as an "historic achievement".
Image:Is it only the third time an all-woman crew has ventured outside of the space station together
At the time the speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi also congratulated the women for "leaving their mark on history".
Before last week's repair mission, 227 astronauts and cosmonauts had completed a spacewalk, but only 14 had been women - and all of those had worked alongside a male astronaut.
Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to perform a spacewalk, officially known as an EVA (Extravehicular Activity), on 25 July 1984.
