Peggy Whitson

Peggy Annette Whitson (born February 9, 1960) is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, former NASA Chief Astronaut, and an active Axiom Space astronaut.

Whitson has a total of 675 days in space, more than any other American or woman.

She decided to become an astronaut after she watched the first Moon landing on television as a child in 1969.

Whitson graduated from Mount Ayr Community High School in 1978 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981.

She then went on to earn her doctorate degree in biochemistry from Rice University in 1986 under the direction of Kathleen Matthews, then continued at Rice as a Robert A Welch Post-doctoral Fellow until October 1986.

She is married to Clarence F. Sams.

After her fellowship at Rice, she began working at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate.

From April 1988 until September 1989, Whitson served as the Supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at NASA-JSC.

From 1989 to 1993, Whitson worked as a research biochemist in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA-JSC.

From 1991 through 1997, Whitson became an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and the Department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

From 1991 to 1993, she served as technical monitor of the Biochemistry Research Laboratories in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch.

From 1991 through 1992, she was the payload element developer for Bone Cell Research Experiment (E10) aboard SL-J (STS-47), and was a member of the US-USSR Joint Working Group in Space Medicine and Biology.

From 1992 to 1995, she served as project scientist for the Shuttle-Mir Program, then until 1996, as deputy division chief for the Medical Sciences division at the Johnson Space Center.

In 1992, she was named the project scientist of the Shuttle-Mir Program (STS-60, STS-63, STS-71, Mir 18, Mir 19), and served in this capacity until the conclusion of the Phase 1A Program in 1995.

From 1993 through 1996, Whitson held the additional responsibilities of the deputy division chief of the Medical Sciences Division at NASA-JSC.

From 1995 to 1996, she served as co-chair of the U.S.-Russian Mission Science Working Group.

In April 1996, Whitson was selected as an astronaut candidate; she started training in August 1996.

In 1997, Whitson began teaching as adjunct assistant professor at Rice University in the MayBee Laboratory for Biochemical and Genetic Engineering.

Upon completing the two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch, and served as the lead for the Crew Test Support Team in Russia from 1998 to 1999.

Her first space mission was in 2002: an extended stay aboard the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 5.

In June 2003, Whitson commanded the NEEMO 5 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working underwater for 14 days.

From November 2003 to March 2005, she served as deputy chief of the Astronaut Office.

From March 2005 to November 2005, she served as chief of the Station Operations Branch, Astronaut Office.

On her second mission, Expedition 16 in 2007-2008, she became the first woman to command the ISS.

In 2009, she became the first woman to serve as NASA's Chief Astronaut, the most senior position in the NASA Astronaut Corps.

Whitson was appointed NASA Chief of the Astronaut Office in October 2009, replacing Steven W. Lindsey.

Whitson was the first female, and first non-pilot to serve as Chief Astronaut.

She resigned when she went back on active flight status in July 2012, replaced by Robert Behnken.

Whitson has also served twice as the commander of the International Space Station.

In 2017, Whitson became the first woman to command the International Space Station twice.

Her 289-day flight was the longest single space flight by a woman until Christina Koch's 328-day flight.

Whitson holds the records for the oldest woman spacewalker and the most spacewalks by a woman.

Whitson's cumulative EVA time is 60 hours, 21 minutes, which places her in fifth place for total EVA time.

At age 57 on her final NASA flight, she was the oldest woman ever in space at that time - a record broken in 2021 by Wally Funk.

She is still the oldest woman to orbit the Earth, a record she broke in 2023, at 63.

On June 15, 2018, Whitson retired from NASA.

She later became a consultant for Axiom Space and is the commander of Axiom Mission 2.

Whitson was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018.

Whitson grew up on a farm outside the town of Beaconsfield, Iowa, with her sister, Kathy, her brothers, Brian and Hugh, and her parents, Keith and Beth.

Her parents were farmers.