Editing Extravehicular activity (section)

{{Short description|Activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft}}
{{Redirect|Spacewalk|other uses}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2019}}
[[File:Volkov during Russian EVA28.jpg|thumb|Cosmonaut [[Sergey Volkov (cosmonaut)|Sergey Volkov]] works outside the International Space Station on August 3, 2011.]]
[[File:Sts114 033.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Stephen Robinson]] riding the [[Canadarm2]] while conducting the first in-flight repair of the Space Shuttle during [[STS-114]] on August 3, 2005. The landmass in the backdrop is the [[Bari, Somalia|Bari region]] of [[Somalia]].]]
'''Extravehicular activity''' ('''EVA''') is any activity done by an [[astronaut]] in [[outer space]] outside a [[spacecraft]]. In the absence of a breathable [[atmosphere of Earth|Earthlike atmosphere]], the astronaut is completely reliant on a [[space suit]] for environmental support. EVA includes '''spacewalks''' and [[Moon|lunar]] or [[planet]]ary surface exploration (commonly known from 1969 to 1972 as '''moonwalks'''). In a stand-up EVA (SEVA), an astronaut stands through an open hatch but does not fully leave the spacecraft.<ref name="standup">{{Cite web|author=NASA|year=2007|title=Stand-Up EVA|url=https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.seva.html|access-date=October 21, 2008|publisher=NASA}}</ref> EVAs have been conducted by the [[Soviet Union]]/Russia, the United States, Canada, the [[European Space Agency]] and China.

On March 18, 1965, [[Alexei Leonov]] became the first human to perform a spacewalk, exiting the [[Voskhod 2]] capsule for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. On July 20, 1969, [[Neil Armstrong]] became the first human to perform a moonwalk, outside his lunar lander on [[Apollo 11]] for 2 hours and 31 minutes. In 1984, [[Svetlana Savitskaya]] became the first woman to perform a spacewalk, conducting EVA outside the [[Salyut 7]] space station for 3 hours and 35 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. American Astronauts [[Pete Conrad]], [[Joseph P. Kerwin|Joseph Kerwin]], and [[Paul J. Weitz|Paul Weitz]] also used EVA in 1973 to repair launch damage to [[Skylab]], the United States' first space station.

EVAs may be either tethered (the [[astronaut]] is connected to the spacecraft; oxygen and electrical power can be supplied through an [[umbilical cable]]; no propulsion is needed to return to the spacecraft), or untethered. Untethered spacewalks were only performed on three missions in 1984 using the [[Manned Maneuvering Unit]] (MMU), and on a flight test in 1994 of the [[Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue]] (SAFER), a safety device worn on tethered U.S. EVAs.