Update:04/27/2022 – Jessica Watkins, is set to become the first African American woman on a long-duration stay, and she left last night for her long term trip!
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA earlier this morning.
On board is 33yo Jessica Watkins, who is the first Black woman to make a long-term spaceflight. They will be at the ISS for five months. #7news pic.twitter.com/zbjwkeaCG2
— Amaka Ubaka (@AmakaUbakaTV) April 27, 2022
Original post March 24th 2022
Another day, another Black woman making history.
Jessica Watkins is set to become the world’s first Black woman to spend six months in space at the International Space Station (ISS).
Starting this April, Watkins will live and work on the ISS for an extended mission.
She will go there through a SpaceX capsule and will spend six months as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
This is a multi-billion-dollar effort to bring humans back to the surface of the moon by 2025.
Watkins is building on the foundation that other Black women astronauts set before her.
She revealed how honored she feels to be a part of this legacy and to be an equal part of the crew.
The ISS has hosted around 250 people.
However, Black people have not even reached 10 in number. In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first Black woman in history to travel to space.
A physician and engineer, she will always be a major part of history, especially when it comes to space exploration.
Other Black women soon followed, including NASA astronauts Joan Higginbotham and Stephanie Wilson.
Watkins was selected for NASA’s astronaut program in 2017. Since then, the 33-year-old has been training hard.
She holds a doctorate in geology that she got from the University of California.
Before that, she got a bachelor’s degree in environmental and geological studies from Stanford University.
Watkins’ mission is heavy: it involves biological science, earth and space science, and research into the effects of long-term spaceflights for human beings.
For this mission, the astronauts themselves are lab rats.
That’s not all, though.
Watkins will also observe and take photos of the geological changes occurring on Earth.
She already knows how to fix anything that stops working properly at the ISS, and she has also practiced spacewalking through an underwater simulation.
