The astronaut from Gaithersburg, Maryland, was announced last week as the spacecraft commander for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 mission expected to launch later this year.It was in Maryland where she first had dreams of going to space. While attending an after-school program at Judith Resnik Elementary School in Gaithersburg as a 9-year-old, she learned the school was named after the second American woman who went to space. A geologist by training, Watkins was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017 after working on Mars rover science teams.She first left earth in 2022 as the mission specialist on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission, logging 170 days in space. It was a historic mission for Watkins, who became the first Black woman to live and work at the International Space Station. Do you think that Jessica Watkins is shaping the future of space exploration?
