Peggy Whitson | |
---|---|
Born | Beaconsfield, Iowa, U.S. | February 9, 1960
Education | Iowa Wesleyan University (BS) Rice University (MS, PhD) |
Space career | |
NASA astronaut | |
Time in space | 675d 4h 5m |
Selection | NASA Group 16 (1996) |
Total EVAs | 10 |
Total EVA time | 60h 21m [1] |
Missions | STS-111/STS-113 (Expedition 5) Soyuz TMA-11 (Expedition 16) Soyuz MS-03/MS-04 (Expedition 50/51/52) Axiom Mission 2 Axiom Mission 4 |
Mission insignia | |
Retirement | June 15, 2018 [2] |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Biochemistry |
Thesis | The Lactose Repressor-Operator DNA Interaction: Chemical and Physical Studies of the Complex (Modification, Equilibrium, Protein, Stopped-Flow, Kinetics) (1986) |
Doctoral advisor | Kathleen Matthews |
Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, and astronaut working for Axiom Space. She retired from NASA in 2018, after serving as Chief Astronaut. [3] Over all her missions, Whitson accumulated a total of 675 days in space, more than any other American or woman. [4] [5]
Her first NASA space mission was in 2002: an extended stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a crew member of Expedition 5. On her second mission, Expedition 16 in 2007-2008, she became the first woman to command the ISS. [6] [7] In 2009, she became the first woman to serve as NASA's Chief Astronaut, the most senior position in the NASA Astronaut Corps. [8] In 2017, Whitson became the first woman to command the International Space Station twice. Her 289-day flight was the longest single space flight by a woman [9] [10] until Christina Koch's 328-day flight. [11]
Whitson holds the records for the oldest woman spacewalker and the most spacewalks by a woman. [12] [13] Whitson's cumulative EVA time is 60 hours, 21 minutes, which places her in fifth place for total EVA time. [1] At age 57 on her final NASA flight, she was the oldest woman ever in space at that time - a record broken in a 2021 sub-orbital flight by Wally Funk. She is still the oldest woman to orbit the Earth, a record she broke in 2023, at 63. [14]
On June 15, 2018, Whitson retired from NASA. She later became a consultant for Axiom Space [15] and is the commander of Axiom Mission 2 [16] and will be the commander of Axiom Mission 4.
Whitson was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. [17]
Whitson grew up on a farm outside the town of Beaconsfield, Iowa, with her sister, Kathy, her brothers, Brian and Hugh, and her parents, Keith and Beth. [3] [18] Her parents were farmers. She decided to become an astronaut after she watched the first Moon landing on television as a child in 1969. [19] Whitson graduated from Mount Ayr Community High School in 1978 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981. She then went on to earn her doctorate degree in biochemistry from Rice University in 1986 [20] under the direction of Kathleen Matthews, [21] then continued at Rice as a Robert A Welch Post-doctoral Fellow until October 1986. She is married to Clarence F. Sams. [3]
After her fellowship at Rice, she began working at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate. From April 1988 until September 1989, Whitson served as the Supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at NASA-JSC. [3]
From 1991 through 1997, Whitson became an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. In 1997, Whitson began teaching as adjunct assistant professor at Rice University in the Maybee Laboratory for Biochemical and Genetic Engineering. [3]
From 1992 to 1995, she served as project scientist for the Shuttle-Mir Program, then until 1996, as deputy division chief for the Medical Sciences division at the Johnson Space Center. [3]
From 1989 to 1993, Whitson worked as a research biochemist in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA-JSC. From 1991 to 1993, she served as technical monitor of the Biochemistry Research Laboratories in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch. From 1991 through 1992, she was the payload element developer for Bone Cell Research Experiment (E10) aboard SL-J (STS-47), and was a member of the US-USSR Joint Working Group in Space Medicine and Biology. In 1992, she was named the project scientist of the Shuttle-Mir Program (STS-60, STS-63, STS-71, Mir 18, Mir 19), and served in this capacity until the conclusion of the Phase 1A Program in 1995. From 1993 through 1996, Whitson held the additional responsibilities of the deputy division chief of the Medical Sciences Division at NASA-JSC. From 1995 to 1996, she served as co-chair of the U.S.-Russian Mission Science Working Group.
In April 1996, Whitson was selected as an astronaut candidate; she started training in August 1996. Upon completing the two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch, and served as the lead for the Crew Test Support Team in Russia from 1998 to 1999. In June 2003, Whitson commanded the NEEMO 5 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for 14 days. [22] From November 2003 to March 2005, she served as deputy chief of the Astronaut Office. From March 2005 to November 2005, she served as chief of the Station Operations Branch, Astronaut Office.
Whitson was appointed NASA Chief of the Astronaut Office in October 2009, replacing Steven W. Lindsey. Whitson was the first female, and first non-pilot to serve as Chief Astronaut. She resigned when she went back on active flight status in July 2012, replaced by Robert Behnken. Whitson has also served twice as the commander of the International Space Station. [23] [24]
She is the Director of Human Space Flight for Axiom Space. [15] In January 2021 it was announced that she is back-up commander of Axiom Mission 1, raising the possibility that she could fly a later Axiom Space mission. [25] [26]
In May 2021, Whitson was confirmed as commander of the second Axiom mission Axiom Mission 2. [16]
She was again back-up commander of Axiom Mission 3.
In April 2024, Whitson was confirmed as commander of the fourth Axiom mission Axiom Mission 4.
The Expedition 5 crew launched on June 5, 2002, aboard STS-111 and docked with the International Space Station on June 7, 2002. During her six-month stay aboard the Space Station, Whitson installed the Mobile Base System, the S1 truss segment, and the P1 truss segment using the space station remote manipulator system; performed a 4-hour and 25 minute spacewalk in a Russian Orlan space suit to install micrometeoroid shielding on the Zvezda Service Module; and activated and checked out the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox, a facility class payload rack.
Whitson was named the first NASA science officer during her stay, and she conducted 21 investigations in human life sciences and microgravity sciences, as well as commercial payloads. [27] The Expedition 5 crew returned to Earth aboard STS-113 on December 7, 2002. Completing her first flight, Whitson logged 184 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes in space.
Her second mission, Expedition 16, launched October 10, 2007, on Soyuz TMA-11. [28] [29] [30] Along with her Expedition 16 crew member Yuri Malenchenko and spaceflight participant Yi So-yeon, she returned to Earth in Soyuz TMA-11 on April 19, 2008. The re-entry was remarkable for the failure of the Soyuz propulsion module to separate properly, and the subsequent "ballistic reentry" which subjected the crew to forces about eight times that of Earth surface gravity. [31] She spent 191 days, 19 hrs and 8 mins in space on this mission. [32]
On December 18, 2007, during the fourth spacewalk of Expedition 16 to inspect the S4 starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), the ground team in Mission Control informed Whitson that she had become the female astronaut with the most cumulative EVA time in NASA history, as well as the most EVAs, with her fifth EVA. Three hours and 37 minutes into the spacewalk, Whitson surpassed NASA astronaut Sunita Williams with a total time at that point of 29 hours and 18 minutes. [33] [34] At the completion of Whitson's fifth EVA, the 100th in support of ISS assembly and maintenance, Whitson's cumulative EVA time became 32 hours, and 36 minutes, which placed her in 20th place for total EVA time. [34] Her sixth spacewalk, also during Expedition 16, brought her cumulative EVA time to 39 hours, 46 minutes, which ranked her 23rd for total EVA time as of November 2009.
Peggy Whitson arrived at the International Space Station on November 19, 2016, [35] on Soyuz MS-03, which was launched on November 17, 2016, from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. [36] She became the commander of Expedition 51. [37] [38] With the launch of Expedition 50/51 with her on it, Whitson, at age 56, became the oldest woman to fly into space. [23] During the mission, she broke the record for cumulative time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut, surpassing the previous record of 534 days set by Jeff Williams. [39] In early April 2017, her mission was extended by an additional 3 months at the International Space Station. On September 3, she returned in a previously vacant seat on the Soyuz capsule accompanied by NASA's Jack Fischer and Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos. [40]
In January 2017, Whitson performed her seventh EVA. along with Expedition 50 commander Shane Kimbrough. During the EVA, they installed three new adapter plates and hooked up electrical connectors preparing the way to replace the ISS batteries. The EVA lasted 6 hours and 32 minutes. Whitson now holds the record for the oldest female spacewalker, and is now tied with the record for total spacewalks by a woman (seven), along with Sunita Williams. [13] After completion of the seventh EVA, Whitson's cumulative EVA time became 46 hours, 18 minutes, which placed her in 13th place for total EVA time.
On April 24, 2017, Whitson officially broke the record for longest amount of time spent in space by any NASA astronaut. [41] As a result, she received a televised phone call from the Oval Office from US President Donald Trump, the President's daughter Ivanka, and fellow astronaut Kathleen Rubins. [41] [42] When interviewed on that day she declared 'It is actually a huge honor to break a record like this, but it is an honor for me back to be representing all the folks at NASA'. [43]
On May 12, 2017, Whitson performed her ninth career EVA with Jack Fischer. After a short delay due to leaking equipment, they replaced an avionics box on the starboard truss called an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier (ELC), a storage platform. The duration was 4 hours and 13 minutes, and it was the 200th EVA to be performed on the ISS. [44]
On May 23, 2017, Whitson performed her tenth career EVA with Fischer. They replaced a backup multiplexer-demultiplexer (MDM) unit that had failed on May 20, 2017. The duration was 2 hours and 46 minutes, making Whitson's cumulative EVA time more than 60 hours, placing her third on the list for most EVA time. [45]
On June 1, 2017, Whitson passed over the command of the International Space Station to Fyodor Yurchikhin, who was named commander of Expedition 52 until he, Whitson and Jack Fischer returned to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-04 in September 2017. [46] [47]
Whitson returned to Earth on September 3, 2017, after she accrued a total of 665 days in space over the course of her career. This total was more time in space than any other woman worldwide and any other American. [4] As of April 2021 she is ranked ninth on the list of total time spent in space. [48] The duration of her stay in space during expeditions 50/51/52 was 289 days, 5 hours and 1 minute. [49] In June 2020, Whitson was a guest (along with two imposters) on an ABC-TV To Tell the Truth episode in which Patti LaBelle correctly selected her as the record-holding time in space astronaut.
Axiom 2 lifted off on 21 May 2023 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, onboard a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. The mission, which was the second flight of Crew Dragon Freedom, docked with the International Space Station a day later.
During the mission, the crew performed public outreach activities along with scientific research, including studies into the effects of microgravity on stem cells and other biological experiments. [50]
After eight days docked to the ISS, Axiom 2 undocked and returned to Earth twelve hours later. Freedom splashed down successfully in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida. It was recovered by SpaceX's recovery ship Megan. [51]
In April 2024 she was confirmed as the commander of Axiom 4, [52] a 16 day mission to the ISS with a crew of four astronauts. The mission is scheduled to launch in April 2025. [53]
Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko is a retired Russian cosmonaut. Malenchenko became the first person to marry in space, on 10 August 2003, when he married Ekaterina Dmitrieva, who was in Texas, while he was 240 miles (390 km) over New Zealand, on the International Space Station. As of December 2023, Malenchenko ranks third for career time in space due to his time on both Mir and the International Space Station (ISS). He is a former commander of the International Space Station.
Michael López-Alegría is an astronaut, test pilot and commercial astronaut with dual nationality, American and Spanish; a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions and one International Space Station mission. He is known for having performed ten spacewalks so far in his career, presently holding the second longest all-time EVA duration record and having the fifth-longest spaceflight of any American at the length of 215 days; this time was spent on board the ISS from September 18, 2006, to April 21, 2007. López-Alegría commanded Axiom-1, the first ever all-private team of commercial astronaut mission to the International Space Station, which launched on April 8, 2022, and spent just over 17 days in Earth's orbit.
Fyodor Nikolayevich Yurchikhin is a Russian cosmonaut of Pontic Greek descent, engineer and RSC Energia test-pilot who has flown on five spaceflights. His first spaceflight was a 10-day Space Shuttle mission STS-112. His second was a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a flight engineer for Expedition 15; for this mission he was launched in the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft. He has undertaken two further long-duration stays aboard the ISS, as a crew member of Expedition 24 / 25. For this mission he was launched with the spacecraft Soyuz TMA-19, and he landed in November 2010, also with the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft. He served as Soyuz commander for his fourth mission aboard Soyuz TMA-09M, as flight engineer for Expedition 36 and ISS commander for Expedition 37. In April 2017, Yurchikhin launched on Soyuz MS-04 for the fifth spaceflight of his career, a six-month mission to the ISS as part of Expedition 51 and 52, for which he was the commander.
Robert Shane Kimbrough is a retired United States Army officer and NASA astronaut. He was part of the first group of candidates selected for NASA astronaut training following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Kimbrough is a veteran of three spaceflights, the first being a Space Shuttle flight, and the second being a six-month mission to the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz craft. He was the commander of the International Space Station for Expedition 50, and returned to Earth in April 2017. He is married to the former Robbie Lynn Nickels.
Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams is an American astronaut, retired U.S. Navy officer, and former record holder for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman. Williams was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33. In 2024, she returned to the ISS on the Boeing Crew Flight Test, the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner; her return to Earth has been delayed until February 2025. As such, from August 2024 until February 2025, Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore are pivoting ahead to undertake various scientific experiments and maintenance tasks aboard the International Space Station.
Expedition 14 was the 14th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Commander Michael López-Alegría, and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 18 September 2006, 04:09 UTC, aboard Soyuz TMA-9. They joined Thomas Reiter, who had arrived at the ISS on 6 July 2006 aboard Space Shuttle Discovery during mission STS-121. In December 2006, Discovery mission STS-116 brought Sunita Williams to replace Reiter as the third member of Expedition 14. On 21 April 2007, López-Alegría and Tyurin returned to Earth aboard TMA-9. Landing occurred at 12:31:30 UTC.
Expedition 15 was the 15th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). Four crew members participated in the expedition, although for most of the expedition's duration only three were on the station at any one time. During Expedition 15, the ISS Integrated Truss Structure was expanded twice: STS-117 brought the S3/S4 truss, and STS-118 brought the S5 truss.
Sergey Nikolayevich Ryzhikov, lieutenant colonel of Russian Air Force, is a Russian cosmonaut, selected in 2006. He is a veteran of two long duration space flights to the ISS.
Expedition 16 was the 16th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The first two crew members, Yuri Malenchenko and Peggy Whitson, launched on 10 October 2007, aboard Soyuz TMA-11, and were joined by spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the first Malaysian in space.
Samantha Cristoforetti is an Italian European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, former Italian Air Force pilot and engineer. She is the second of two women sent into space by ESA and the first from Italy. Cristoforetti holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight by a European astronaut, and she held the record for the longest single space flight by a woman until this was broken by Peggy Whitson in June 2017, and later by Christina Koch. She took command of ISS Expedition 68 on 28 September 2022.
Colonel Luca Parmitano is an Italian astronaut in the European Astronaut Corps for the European Space Agency (ESA). He was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. Parmitano is also a Colonel and test pilot for the Italian Air Force. He is the first Italian to command the International Space Station (ISS) during Expedition 61.
Tracy Caldwell Dyson is an American chemist and NASA astronaut. She was a mission specialist on Space Shuttle Endeavour flight STS-118 in August 2007 and has participated in two long-duration missions to the International Space Station, Expedition 23 and 24 from April to September 2010 and Expedition 70 and 71 from March to September 2024. She has completed four spacewalks, logging nearly 24 hours of extravehicular activity.
Soyuz MS-03 was a Soyuz spaceflight launched on 17 November 2016. It transported three members of the Expedition 50 crew to the International Space Station. MS-03 was the 132nd flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander with American and French flight engineers.
Expedition 50 was the 50th expedition to the International Space Station.
Soyuz MS-04 was a Soyuz spaceflight that launched on 20 April 2017 to the ISS. It transported two members of the Expedition 52 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-04 was the 133rd flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander and an American flight engineer. It was the first of the Soyuz MS series to rendezvous with the Station in approximately 6 hours, instead of the 2 day orbital rendezvous used for the previous launches. It was also the first Soyuz to launch with only 2 crew members since Soyuz TMA-2.
Expedition 51 was the 51st expedition to the International Space Station, which began upon the departure of Soyuz MS-02 on April 10, 2017, and concluded upon the departure of Soyuz MS-03 on June 2, 2017. Peggy Whitson, Oleg Novitskiy and Thomas Pesquet were transferred from Expedition 50, with Peggy Whitson taking the commander role. She is the first woman to command two expeditions to the ISS, having previously commanded Expedition 16.
Expedition 63 was the 63rd long duration mission to the International Space Station, which began on 17 April 2020 with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft and continued until the undocking of the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft on 21 October 2020, an unusual double-length expedition increment. The expedition initially consisted of American commander Chris Cassidy, as well as Russian flight engineers Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. On 31 May 2020, the expedition welcomed the crew of Crew Dragon Demo-2, the first crewed flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour after the eponymous Space Shuttle vehicle. The mission's two crew members Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken undocked from the International Space Station on 1 August 2020 to help bolster research on the station and participate in several spacewalks outside of the station.
Expedition 64 was the 64th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) that began on 21 October 2020 with the undocking and departure of Soyuz MS-16. The expedition started with the three crew members who launched onboard Soyuz MS-17 and reached its full complement with the arrival of SpaceX Crew-1, the first operational flight of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). As Crew-1 consists of a crew of four instead of three like the Soyuz, Expedition 64 marks the beginning of operations for crews of seven on the ISS. In the final week of the mission, Soyuz MS-18 and its three person crew joined the mission. The expedition ended on 17 April 2021 with the departure of Soyuz MS-17.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration .