NASA has assigned their first ever Black woman for long term astronaut duty on the international space station.
This week NASA announced that they have recruited the first Black woman, Jeanette Epps, to live and work long term on the International Space Station.
Jeanette Epps has been at NASA for years, beginning as a Graduate Student Research Project Fellow and has quite a few achievements under her belt. NASA explained that “the spaceflight will be the first for Epps, who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1992 from LeMoyne College in her hometown of Syracuse, New York. She completed a master’s degree in science in 1994 and a doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2000, both from the University of Maryland, College Park.”
Epps will be joined by Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada on the expedition to the International Space Station, but before they can start the first of their six contracted missions there, the space-ship will need to successfully complete two tests, including an un-crewed mission of its capsule to the ISS and a crewed test mission.
Thank you @JimBridenstine! I’m looking forward to the mission.🚀💫 https://t.co/h2xIJMK1Ef pic.twitter.com/cSRf1SE4cr
— Jeanette J. Epps (@Astro_Jeanette) August 25, 2020
Whilst Epps will be the first Black woman to live and work long term on the ISS, she continues a tradition for Black women to be included in space missions, which only began with Mae Jemison in 1992.
