12/27/2022 0 Comments Katherine johnson nasa missionsThen, in 2016, the best-selling book Hidden Figures, shortly followed by a star-studded, award-winnin g movie of the same name, shot Johnson and her name and contributions into the limelight. Johnson was also involved in the calculations of Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 mission the year before, which made him the first American in space.ĭespite her trailblazing genius, Johnson was, for a time, mostly forgotten, and left as a part of hidden history. That flight ended in success and Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. Glenn told engineers to “get the girl” (aka Johnson) to run the numbers before his mission. She most famously verified the results given by computers to calculate the orbit for John Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, something that Glenn himself demanded. At the time – during the 1950s and 1960s racial segregation was still the norm, but Johnson persisted and thrived. Johnson worked her way through the ranks of NASA as a “colored computer” who worked on calculations for several space missions during a time when computer were still not trusted. Today, we celebrate her 101 years of life and honor her legacy of excellence that broke down racial and social barriers: /dGiGmEVvAW- NASA February 24, 2020 Henson.įollowing the news of her death, the then NASA administrator James Bridenstine described Johnson as “an American hero”, adding that “her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten”.We're saddened by the passing of celebrated #HiddenFigures mathematician Katherine Johnson. In the film, which tells the story of Johnson and two other African American women – Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson – who worked as NASA mathematicians during the space race, Johnson is portrayed by actor Taraji P. Johnson’s story was featured in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures, as well as in the 2016 film of the same name. In 2016, NASA named a new computational research facility after her. Legacyĭuring her career, Johnson authored multiple research papers and received numerous awards and accolades, including the 2015 US Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Barack Obama. Johnson died in Newport News, Virginia, on 24 February 2020 at the age of 101. Her work helped the US become the first country to land a person on the moon on 20 July 1969. Johnson went on to join the Space Mechanics Division, where she calculated the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon and worked on key calculations that helped synchronise the mission’s lunar lander with the moon-orbiting command and service module. “If she says they’re good, then I’m ready to go,” Johnson recalled the astronaut saying. As part of the pre-flight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl” – referring to Johnson – insisting that she run the numbers through the same equations by hand to check the computer’s calculations. The agency was relying on a network of computers, programmed with orbital equations that would control the trajectory of Glenn’s capsule. Less than a year later, NASA was preparing for the mission that would see Glenn become the first US astronaut to orbit Earth in February 1962. In May 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first US citizen and second person in the world to go to space. Meanwhile, at NACA (which had since become NASA), Johnson had been working on the trajectory analysis for the US’s first human space flight. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 – the first artificial Earth satellite – and in April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to journey into space and orbit Earth. At the same time, the space race between the US and the Soviet Union was heating up. Over the next four years, she worked alongside aeronautical engineers analysing data from flight tests. Within two weeks of working at Langley, Johnson’s talent landed her a position in the Flight Research Division. Johnson refused to use the “colored” toilets and ate lunch at her desk. In addition to the computing pool, the toilets and cafeteria at Langley were also racially segregated at the time. In 1953, Johnson started working at the all-Black West Area Computing section of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which would later become the space agency NASA.
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