A NASA mathematician whose calculations helped send the first American into orbit is being honored as the namesake for a supply of supplies that will support the astronauts circling the earth today.
If there are schedules, the SS will launch Katherine Johnson, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship, to the International Space Station on February 20 – 59 years after the day after Johnson’s work made John Glenn’s Mercury mission possible.
“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 has overcome obstacles of race and gender,” the company said in a press release. written on February 1st. “It is the tradition of the company to name each Cygnus spacecraft after an individual who has played a crucial role in human spaceflight.”
Johnson, who died on February 24, 2020 at the age of 101, was among a pool of African-American women whose role it was to be the human ‘computers’ for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor agency. . Johnson and her colleagues performed the mathematical work required by the engineers to advance their aviation work.
After NASA was founded in 1958, Johnson transferred to the Space Task Group at Langley Research Center in Virginia, calculating the suborbital and orbital trajectories for the early American human spacecraft. As part of her work, Johnson becomes the first woman in NASA’s flight research division to be recognized as the author of a report.
Years later, after Johnson retired and a book and movie brought her and her co-stories “Hidden Figures” 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 designation of NASA’s computer research facility and the driveway in front of NASA’s headquarters building in Washington, DC. Mattel also modeled a Barbie doll after Johnson’s appearance.
The NG-15 Cygnus is the first spacecraft to fly under Johnson’s name.
“Her work at NASA has literally left Americans in space and her legacy continues to inspire young black women every day. Northrop Grumman is proud to celebrate the life of Katherine Johnson and her endless perseverance,” the company said.
SS Katherine Johnson will launch on top of a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Space Harbor at NASA’s Wallops flying facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The raw capsule delivers approximately 3,720 kg of scientific experiments, supplies and hardware for the space station’s crew at Expedition 64.
After about two months at the station, the Katherine Johnson will depart and deploy a number of CubeSats – including 42 ThinSats as part of a student outreach program by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority – before making a devastating entry into the atmosphere of export the earth. .
The SS Katherine Johnson is the second Cygnus to be named a black space pioneer. SS Robert Lawrence was named the first African-American to be selected as an astronaut when it was launched in February 2020.
Other Cygnus spacecraft names include former chief executive JR 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 . The most recent Cygnus, launched in October 2020 and leaving the space station in January, was named the SS Kalpana Chawla after the first Indian-born woman to enter space.