U.S. astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir made history on Friday when they stepped outside the International Space Station (ISS) on the first all-female spacewalk. From a report: The much-anticipated milestone for NASA was achieved during a relatively routine mission to swap faulty batteries on the station’s exterior. Koch and Meir, clad in white spacesuits and tethered by cords to the station some 254 miles (408 km) above Earth, stepped into outer space at 7:38 a.m. Eastern time (1138 GMT) to replace a faulty power unit designed to help condition energy stored from the station’s solar panels, NASA announced online as it showed live video of the action. Today, President Trump took a few moments out of his day to speak with Koch and Meir. From a report: While speaking with the pair, Trump mistakenly suggested this was the first female spacewalk ever — a point that the astronauts corrected him on. “This is the first time for a woman outside of the space station,” Trump said. He later added: “You are amazing people; they’re conducting the first ever female spacewalk to replace an exterior part of the space station. They’re doing some work, and they’re doing it in a very high altitude — an altitude that very few people will ever see.” In her response, Meir made it clear that they were building on the work of many previous women who had spacewalked before them. “We don’t want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before,” Meir said. “This is the first time that there’s been two women outside at the same time.” In the history of spaceflight, only 15 women have ever spacewalked, including Meir and Koch.

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