标签： NASA History

Mary W. Jackson, NASA’s first black female engineer, was born April 9, 1921. Jackson earned degrees in mathematics and physical sciences in 1942. She landed a job at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computing section in 1951, reporting to the group’s supervisor Dorothy Vaughan and eventually working alongside Katherin...

​As a NASA payload communications manager, or PAYCOM, Penny J. Pettigrew spends most days in the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, communicating with coworkers some 250 miles overhead – the astronauts conducting scientific research aboard the International Space Station, as shown in thi...

On March 18, 1978, space shuttle Enterprise arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center for mated vertical ground vibration testing, which marked the first time the entire shuttle compliment – orbiter, external tank, and solid rocket boosters – were mated vertically. Here, Enterprise is offloaded at Redstone Arsenal Airfield before being moved to Marshall...

In this image from Jan. 18, 2019, Teddy Tzanetos, MiMi Aung and Bob Balaram of NASA’s Mars Helicopter project observe a flight test of a model of the Mars Helicopter in the Space Simulator, a 25-foot-wide (7.62 meter-wide) vacuum chamber at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Aung is currently the Mars Helicopter Project manager. Aung, who has worked at JPL...

March 8 of each year is celebrated around the globe as International Women’s Day. At NASA, women – be they scientists, pilots, astronauts or subject matter experts – help the agency fulfill its mission. Joan Higginbotham is one of those women. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996. She began her career at NASA in 1987 as an electrical engi...

Kelly J. Latimer was a research pilot in the Flight Crew Branch of NASA’s Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center from March through November 2007 and flew the T38, T-34, G-III, C-17, and the Ikhana/Predator B. Latimer was the center’s first female research test pilot. Prior to joining NASA, Latimer was on active duty with the U.S. Air Forc...

On Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021, the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters sign is installed ahead of the building naming ceremony, which took place the following day at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA, began her career with the agency in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of NASA’s Langley Res...

In this image taken on Feb. 28, 2011, NASA astronaut Alvin Drew participates in the STS-133 mission’s first spacewalk as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 34-minute spacewalk, Drew and NASA astronaut Steve Bowen (out of frame) installed the J612 power extension cable, moved a failed ammonia p...