![]() “Fifty-nine years ago today, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth after personally asking for Katherine Johnson to verify his Mercury missions’ orbital trajectory calculations. “As a Black woman, Katherine Johnson shattered race and gender barriers to live out her dreams and become a pivotal part of this country’s young space program,” he said in a statement. That the spacecraft bears the name of Johnson, who also inspired the 2016 film “Hidden Figures,” is an “honor,” said Adi Boulos, the lead NASA flight director for the mission. Katherine Johnson will be at the International Space Station until May, when it will make its fiery journey back to Earth, disposing of several thousands of trash along the way, according to a news release. It also brings advanced computing to the space station and upgrades to clean air and water systems for the crew there. The spacecraft will support experiments that are exploring treatments to restore vision to those with retinal degenerative diseases, why astronauts experience muscle weakening in microgravity and how astronauts sleep in space, among others. Kalpana Chawla after the first Indian-born woman to enter space.Katherine Johnson, famed NASA mathematician and inspiration for the film 'Hidden Figures,' is dead at 101 The most recent Cygnus, which launched in October 2020 and departed the space station in January, was named the S.S. Thompson and NASA astronauts David Low, Gordon Fullerton, Janice Voss, Deke Slayton, Rick Husband, Alan Poindexter, John Glenn, Gene Cernan, John Young, Roger Chaffee and Alan Bean. Other Cygnus spacecraft namesakes have included former company executive J.R. Robert Lawrence was named for the first African American to be selected as an astronaut when it launched in February 2020. Katherine Johnson is the second Cygnus to be named for a Black space pioneer. The uncrewed capsule will deliver approximately 8,200 pounds (3,720 kg) of science experiments, supplies and hardware for the space station's Expedition 64 crew.Īfter about two months berthed to the station, the Katherine Johnson will depart and deploy a number of CubeSats - including 42 ThinSats as part of an outreach program for students by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority - before performing a destructive re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Katherine Johnson will launch atop a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island in Virginia. Northrop Grumman is proud to celebrate the life of Katherine Johnson and her endlessly perseverant spirit," the company said. "Her work at NASA quite literally launched Americans into space and her legacy continues to inspire young black women every day. The NG-15 Cygnus is the first spacecraft to fly under Johnson's name. ![]() Mattel also modeled a Barbie doll after Johnson's appearance. Years later, after Johnson retired and a book and a movie brought her and her fellow "Hidden Figures" stories to the public's attention, Johnson's contributions to NASA were further recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, as well as the naming of NASA's Computational Research Facility and the roadway in front of NASA's Headquarters building in Washington, DC. As part of her work, Johnson became the first woman in NASA's flight research division to be credited as the author of a report. Johnson and her colleagues performed the mathematical work needed by the engineers to advance their aeronautical work.Īfter NASA was founded in 1958, Johnson transitioned to the Space Task Group at Langley Research Center in Virginia, calculating the suborbital and orbital trajectories for the early U.S. ![]() 24, 2020, was among a pool of African-American women whose role it was to be the human "computers" for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor agency to NASA. "It is the company's tradition to name each Cygnus spacecraft after an individual who has played a pivotal role in human spaceflight." "In celebration of Black History Month, Northrop Grumman announced the name of our NG-15 Cygnus spacecraft in honor of Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician who overcame barriers of race and gender," the company wrote in a Feb. 20 - 59 years to the day after Johnson's work made John Glenn's Mercury mission a possible. Katherine Johnson, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship, will launch to the International Space Station on Feb. A NASA mathematician whose calculations helped send the first American into orbit is being honored as the namesake for a resupply craft that will support the astronauts circling Earth today.
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