1st Female Space Station Commander Returns To Earth

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station, returned to Earth at approximately 4:30 a.m. EDT Saturday, ending a mission during which she conducted five spacewalks and set a new record in American spaceflight, according to NASA.

Whitson and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, members of the 16th crew to live and work aboard the station, safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi also returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz. The landing was approximately 295 miles from the expected landing site, delaying the recovery forces' arrival to the spacecraft by approximately 45 minutes.

Whitson, 48, has accumulated more time in space than any U.S. astronaut in history. She and Malenchenko, who launched to the station on Oct. 10, 2007, spent 192 days in space. This was Whitson's second flight to the station. She served almost 185 days as a flight engineer on the Expedition 5 crew, which launched June 5, 2002, and returned to Earth Dec. 7, 2002. Whitson has totaled 377 days in space during two missions. On April 16, she surpassed the 374-day record set by astronaut Mike Foale during his six flights.

Malenchenko, 46, a Russian Air Force colonel, completed his third long-duration spaceflight. He spent 126 days aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1994, and commanded Expedition 7, spending 185 days in space in 2006. He also was a member of the STS-106 crew of shuttle Atlantis on a 12-day mission to the station in 2000. He has accumulated 515 days in space
during his four flights. That is the ninth highest total of cumulative time.

The Expedition 16 crew worked with experiments across a wide variety of fields, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation. Many of the experiments are designed to gather information about the effects of long-duration spaceflight on the human body, which will help with planning future exploration missions to the moon and Mars.

The Expedition 16 crew members undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 1:06 a.m. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward the Earth began at 3:40 a.m.

Before undocking, Whitson and Malenchenko bid farewell to the new station crew, Expedition 17 Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Garrett Reisman. Volkov and Konenko launched to the station April 8. They were accompanied by Yi who flew under a commercial contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. Reisman came to the station aboard shuttle Endeavour on the STS-123 mission, which launched March 11.

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First Woman Station Commander Arrives for Historic Spaceflight

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson arrived at the International Space Station Friday to begin her tenure as the first woman to command a station mission.

Whitson, Soyuz Commander and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian Spaceflight Participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor docked their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft to the station at 10:50 a.m. ET. The crew launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Whitson officially will become the station commander after a ceremony Friday, Oct. 19, at approximately 3:15 p.m. ET. This change of command event will mark the formal handover of the station to Whitson and Malenchenko, just days before the Expedition 15 crew members and Shukor depart.

"I think it's special that I get the opportunity to play that role," Whitson says when asked about being the first woman station commander. "But I think it's also special to have an opportunity to demonstrate how many other women also work at NASA."

Another female astronaut, space shuttle Discovery Commander Pam Melroy, will reach another milestone in late October when she and her crew arrive at the station. It will mark the first time two women have led space missions at the same time.

To familiarize themselves with station systems and procedures, Expedition 16's Whitson and Malenchenko will conduct more than a week of handover activities with Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov and Expedition 15 and 16 Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson. Whitson and two other crew members will perform three spacewalks during Expedition 16 to prepare the station for the activation of the Harmony node. The Expedition 16 spacewalks also will prepare for the relocations of Harmony and Pressurized Mating Adapter-2, a docking port.

This is Whitson's second six-month rotation aboard the orbiting complex. She previously served as a flight engineer on Expedition 5 in 2002, when she became NASA's first station science officer, conducting 21 investigations in human and life sciences. During that mission, she also used the station's robotic arm to help add two truss segments to the station's backbone and performed a spacewalk to install debris shielding.

Whitson was born and raised in Iowa, where at an early age she was inspired by the men who walked on the moon. "I thought 'what a cool job!'"

She decided she wanted to fly in space after graduating from high school, which was the same year they picked the first set of female astronauts. Whitson knew she wanted to work for NASA, if not as an astronaut, then as a scientist.

Whitson received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981 and a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in 1985. From 1989 to 1993, Whitson worked as a research biochemist in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. For the next several years, she held a number of senior positions within NASA until her selection as an astronaut
in 1996.

When Whitson returns home in April 2008, she will hold yet another distinction, that of having spent more time in space than any other woman.

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