page_title: Extravehicular activity
section_title: National, ethnic and gender firsts
hierarchical_section_title: Extravehicular activity / Milestones / National, ethnic and gender firsts
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of Mir EO-24 commander Anatoly Solovyev performing an EVA outside Spektr to inspect the module for damage following the collision between the station and Progress M-34 in 1997.
context_page_description: Extravehicular activity is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earth's appreciable atmosphere. The term most commonly applies to a spacewalk made outside a craft orbiting Earth. On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to perform a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. The term also applied to lunar surface exploration performed by six pairs of American astronauts in the Apollo program from 1969 to 1972. On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to perform a moonwalk, outside his lunar lander on Apollo 11 for 2 hours and 31 minutes. On the last three Moon missions astronauts also performed deep-space EVAs on the return to Earth, to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the spacecraft. Astronauts Pete Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz also used EVA in 1973 to repair launch damage to Skylab, the United States' first space station.
  A "Stand-up" EVA is when an astronaut does not fully leave a spacecraft, but is completely reliant on the spacesuit for environmental support.
context_section_description: 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 two women to perform an EVA together and the first all-female EVA team were Christina Koch and Jessica Meir on October 18, 2019, during Expedition 61 on the International Space Station.
  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 black African-American was on February 9, 1995, by Bernard A. Harris Jr..
  The first EVA by a Japanese astronaut was made on November 25, 1997, by Takao Doi during STS-87.
  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 astronaut was made on April 22, 2001, by Chris Hadfield along with NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski during mission STS-100 to install Canadarm2 on the International Space Station.
  The first EVA by a Scandinavian astronaut was made on December 12, 2006, by Christer Fuglesang.
  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 an Italian astronaut was made on July 9, 2013, by Luca Parmitano along with NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy during Expedition 36 on the International Space Station.
  The first EVA by a British astronaut was on January 15, 2016, by Tim Peake.
  Although British-American Michael Foale carried out an EVA on February 9, 1995, he flew as an American astronaut in NASA's program.
caption: Anatoly Solovyev holds the record for time spent during spacewalks: 82+ hours over 16 separate outings, seen here performing an EVA outside Mir space station in 1997
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