NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps will be creating background in 2021 as the 1st Black feminine astronaut to turn into a crew member on a mission to the Intercontinental Room Station.
The house agency declared on Tuesday that Epps would be joining Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada for NASA’s 1st operational crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Williams, who will be embarking on her 3rd expedition, and Cassada, on his initial, were assigned to the mission in August 2018. On Twitter, NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine mentioned that Epps is a “fantastic addition.” Epps responded with a online video sharing her thanks.
Epps was selected as a member of the 2009 astronaut course following earning her doctorate in aerospace engineering and performing for the CIA. She was slated to be part of a June 2018 ISS expedition in advance of the place was out of the blue passed onto fellow feminine astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who became the initially Hispanic woman to reside on the ISS.
At the time, Epps’s brother Henry claimed that racism at NASA was the cause for the switch — a sentiment that Epps has by no means commented on publicly. NASA did not instantly respond to Yahoo Life’s ask for for remark, but responded in 2018 to Henry Epps’s promises, telling the Washington Publish, “Diversity and inclusion are integral to mission accomplishment at NASA and we have a various astronaut corps reflective of that technique.”
NASA confirmed to CNBC that 6 Black Us citizens have frequented the room station in the past, even though none for an extended interval of time, building Epps the very first Black female astronaut to make a 6-month expedition.
Epps has shared nothing but her exhilaration on Twitter, crafting that she is “looking ahead to the mission” and sharing that pleasure with her crew customers.
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