MELBOURNE, Fla. – NASA will try once again to conduct an all-female spacewalk, six months after the first attempt had to be canceled because of a lack of available spacesuits aboard the International Space Station.

Christina Koch and Jessica Meir are scheduled to embark on their spacewalk together on Oct. 21, the space agency announced Friday.

Originally, Koch was scheduled in March to conduct a spacewalk with astronaut Anne McClain – in what would have been the first all-female spacewalk. But McClain and Koch both required medium-size suits, and there was only one available that would be ready in time.

That shouldn’t be a problem anymore. NASA has sent up another medium-size spacesuit, according to NASA’s news conference Friday.

Koch, who has been at the space station since March, and Meir will conduct the fourth of five planned spacewalks to upgrade the power systems on the the space station by installing new lithium-ion batteries.

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NASA’s deputy chief astronaut Megan McArthur told reporters the all-female spacewalk will be a milestone. But she noted that women are so integrated at all levels at NASA now that they don’t tend to dwell on gender.

“I’m sure that they’ll sit back and reflect on it, as we all will. We will all celebrate that,” McArthur said.

Expect more women spacewalking together on the horizon.

“It turns out that over the next couple years, we’re having a lot of medium-suit people fly,” said NASA’s space station program manager, Kirk Shireman.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Follow Antonia Jaramillo on Twitter:@AntoniaJ_11.

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