US Cosmonaut Peggy Annette Whitson or Peggy Whitson is about to break another space record by taking spacewalk on 6th January morning. At the age of 56, when she took off from the land for the International Space Station (ISS), back in November 2016, she created the record for being the oldest-ever woman to be in space. Once again, on 6th January, Friday, she is going to be the oldest woman to take a spacewalk out of the ISS.
The first space mission of Peggy Whitson was started in 2002, with an extensive stay on board the International Space Station (ISS), as a part of Expedition 5. And now, she is the chief flight engineer of Expedition 50; the 50th mission of NASA to the International Space Station. Being the oldest woman in the space, Peggy Whitson will celebrate her 57th Birthday, this February aboard the International Space Station. Currently, she is assigned for a 6-month space mission by NASA, where she is operating as the flight engineer of Expedition-50. This is the third time of Peggy Whitson aboard ISS.
The US-based astronaut Peggy Whitson also a biochemistry researcher and the former chief astronaut of NASA. Being the first female commander of the Expedition-16 for the ISS, she set a new milestone in 2010, which is later followed by multiple other momentous records. In her current mission of Expedition-50, Peggy Whitson is being accompanied by two other astronauts including Thomas Pesquet from France and cosmonaut Olev Novitskiy from Russia. In the programmed spacewalk on Friday, she will be assisted by the cosmonaut Shane Kimbrough, while European Space Agency (ESA)’s cosmonauts Thomas Pesquet and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy will help out the two spacewalkers from inside the ISS.
Back in November, Peggy Whitson, along with two other astronauts, each from France and Russia, lifted off from a Russian launch facility, located in Kazakhstan and successfully placed into orbit eight minutes after the take-off. Later, they are joined by two other cosmonauts aboard ISS, for the mission of Expedition-50, programmed by NASA.
The current spacewalk is scheduled for 6 and half hours, during which, Peggy Whitson alongside Shane Kimbrough will carry out the replacement of six power tools, integrated with the ISS.