human spaceflight

Fiona Turett working in NASA's Mission Control Center during Hurricane Harvey

Meet The NASA Rocket Women That Kept The Space Station Flying During Hurricane Harvey: Part 3

Rocket Women are highlighting the untold stories of the dedicated Orbit1 team that remained in Mission Control at NASA Johnson Space Center to tirelessly battle Hurricane Harvey, keeping the space station flying and the astronauts onboard safe. The third of this special 4-part series (Part 2 here) features Orbit1’s Fiona Turett, ADCO – Attitude Determination and Control Officer in NASA’s Mission Control. …

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Ariel Waldman in California at the space-communicating Stanford Dish [Photo copyright: Helena Price]

Meet A Rocket Woman: Ariel Waldman, Founder, SpaceHack.org & Author

With a background in design, working at NASA set Ariel Waldman on a mission to empower others to contribute to space exploration. Ariel founded Spacehack.org, a directory of ways for anyone to participate in space exploration and is the “global instigator” of Science Hack Day, an event that brings people together to prototype with science in …

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Why The UK Needed A High Profile British Astronaut

As a child I was an avid reader and read every space book I could get my hands on. At the age of 6, I remember reading that Helen Sharman was the UK’s first astronaut and had travelled to space a mere 2 years before, in 1991. That moment changed my life. Rather than astronauts being primarily American NASA Shuttle crew that …

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All-Female Russian Crew Start Mock Mission To The Moon

A year after Russia sent it’s first female cosmonaut to the International Space Station (ISS), a group of six Russian women are currently undergoing an 8-day analogue mission to the Moon. The accomplished women, with expertise in backgrounds including biophysics and medicine, entered a suite of wood-panelled rooms on October 28 at Moscow’s Institute of …

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Sunita Williams To Fly To ISS On US Commercial Vehicle

After launching to space on both NASA’s Space Shuttle and then the Russian Soyuz rocket, Sunita (Suni) Williams will be one of the first female NASA astronaut to fly onboard the new US commercial vehicles being developed. Suni, who formerly held the record for the longest EVA (spacewalk) time by a female astronaut, was chosen along with astronaut …

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The Real Rocket Women:All-Female Astronaut Panel Represents International Cooperation

“I bet the first thing you noticed about this panel was that they were all astronauts..and that they’re all women” – Janet Petro, Deputy Director, NASA Kennedy Space Center Janet Petro, Deputy Director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, opened the panel as moderator. She is an esteemed individual of her own with a career in the United …

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Happy Birthday to NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams!

A very Happy Birthday to NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams! Sunita’s celebrating her birthday onboard the International Space Station (ISS), which she became Commander of last week, becoming only the second female commander in ISS history. During an EVA (spacewalk) last week, Sunita also gained the world record for the longest time spent spacewalking by a …

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The passing of Sally Ride: First American Woman in Space.

With the unfortunate passing of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, recently, it’s poignant to reflect upon how utterly significant her achievement really was. On her launch into space on Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, she was preceeded by two Russian women, Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982), however still marking a …

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Welcome!

Dear readers, Welcome to Rocket Women! To introduce myself, my name’s Vinita Marwaha and I’m an Operations Engineer for the International Space Station. Most commonly described as being a Rocket Scientist. Apart from having a successful career in the space industry, I’m also a daughter, girlfriend, sister and friend. I wondered why it was that …

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