Space walk Milestones

The first untethered spacewalk was made by American Bruce McCandless II on February 7, 1984, during Challenger mission STS-41-B, utilizing the Manned Maneuvering Unit. He was subsequently joined by Robert L. Stewart during the 5 hour 55 minute spacewalk. See photo at right. Such a self-contained spacewalk was first attempted by Eugene Cernan in 1966 on Gemini 9A, but Cernan could not reach the maneuvering unit without tiring.

The first three-person EVA was performed on May 13, 1992, as the third EVA of STS-49, the maiden flight of Endeavour. Pierre Thuot, Richard Hieb, and Thomas Akers conducted the EVA to hand-capture and repair a non-functional Intelsat VI-F3 satellite. See photo at right.

Stephen Robinson riding the robotic arm during STS-114, doing a first in-flight repair of the Space Shuttle.(Landmass in the backdrop is the Bari region of Somalia).

The first EVA to perform an in-flight repair of the Space Shuttle was by American Steve Robinson on August 3, 2005, during "Return to Flight" mission STS-114. Robinson was sent to remove two protruding gap fillers from Discovery's heat shield, after engineers determined there was a small chance they could affect the shuttle upon re-entry. Robinson successfully removed the loose material while Discovery was docked to the International Space Station. See photo at right.

The longest EVA as of 2007, was 8 hours and 56 minutes, performed by Susan J. Helms and James S. Voss on March 11, 2001.

Personal cumulative duration records

Russian Anatoly Solovyev holds both the record for most EVAs and for the greatest cumulative duration spent in EVA (16 EVAs; 82 hr and 22 min).

Michael Lopez-Alegria holds the American record (10 EVAs; 67 hr and 40 min).

Christer Fuglesang holds the European (non-Russian) record (5 EVAs; 31 hr and 55 min).

National, ethnic and gender firsts

The first woman to perform an EVA was Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya on July 25, 1984 while aboard the Salyut 7 space station. Her EVA lasted 3 hours and 35 minutes.

The first American woman to perform an EVA was Kathryn D. Sullivan on October 11, 1984 during Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-G.

The first EVA by a non-Soviet, non-American was made on December 9, 1988 by Jean-Loup Chrétien of France during a three-week stay on the Mir space station.

The first EVA by a Briton was on February 9, 1995 by Michael Foale (who carries dual British-American citizenship).

The first EVA by a black African-American was on February 9, 1995 by Bernard A. Harris, Jr..

The first EVA by an Australian-born person was on March 13, 2001 by Andy Thomas (although he is a naturalized US citizen).

The first EVA by a Canadian was made on April 22, 2001 by Chris Hadfield. During his spacewalk, Hadfield installed the Canadarm2 onto the International Space Station.

The first EVA by a Chinese astronaut was made on September 27, 2008 by Zhai Zhigang during Shenzhou 7 mission. The spacewalk, using a Feitian space suit, made China the third country to independently carry out an EVA.

The first EVA by a Japanese astronaut was made on November 25, 1997 by Doi Takao during STS-87. During his spacewalk, Doi conducted experiments from the International Space Station.