Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is an African-American physicist and mathematician who. She also worked on the space shuttle program and the Earth Resources Satellite and encouraged students to pursue careers in science and technology. Main achievements: Calculating the trajectories for many NASA missions. " Johnson is also known for verifying the calculations made by electronic computers of John Glenn’s 1962 launch to orbit and the 1969 Apollo 11 trajectory to the moon. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off. "Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start. She and women like her worked unseen for. "The early trajectory was a parabola, and it was easy to predict where it would be at any point, " Johnson said. Katherine Johnson, a mathematician for NASA and its predecessor agency, passed away on 24 February at age 101. Among them were the NASA Lunar Orbiter Award and three NASA Special Achievement Awards. Johnson worked at Langley from 1953 until her retirement in 1986, making critical technical contributions which included calculating the trajectory of the 1961 flight of Alan Shepard, the first American in space. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS, later renamed Landsat) and authored or coauthored 26.Date of death: Feb. During her tenure at NASA, Johnson received many prestigious awards. Johnson became known for her training in geometry, her leadership, and her inquisitive nature she was the only woman at the time to be pulled from the computing pool to work with engineers on other programs. Katherine Johnson, the mathematician and NASA scientist who played a critical role in the Apollo 11 moon landing, died Monday in Newport News, Virginia, the New York Times reports. Johnson began her career in 1953 at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that preceded NASA, one of a number of African-American women hired to work as "computers" in what was then their Guidance and Navigation Department, just as the NACA was beginning its work on space. NASA space scientist and mathematician Katherine Johnson. 2019.Known as “a virtual computer who wore skirts” NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson is photographed at her desk at Langley Research Center in 1966. Katherine Johnson, the trailblazing NASA mathematician, wins the Hubbard Medal for her calculations that made space exploration possible. "Katherine Johnson Biography." From Hidden Figures to Modern Figures, edited by Sarah Loff, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 16 Aug. Johnson celebrated her 100th birthday in 2018. She returned In 2015, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. This mission was one of many in her long career working for NASA in moving space exploration forward, which included working on the space shuttle and Apollo lunar lander. NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles Pioneering NASA mathematician Katherine Coleman Johnson of 'Hidden Figures' fame was always at the front of the class. Johnson's knowledge of orbital equations would serve her well for her work supporting the historic Friendship 7 mission in which John Glenn made history by becoming the first American to orbit earth. In 1960, she became the first woman ni the Flight Research Division of NASA to receive author credit for her contributions to a report "laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified." She left college to start a family, and returned to the workforce in 1953 when she secured a position at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in Langley, Virginia. Johnson began her teaching career in Virginia in 1937, and in 1939 was chosen as one of 3 black students to be admitted into the newly integrated graduate studies programs at West Virginia State University. She excelled in school and enrolled in college at West Virginia State University, studying math and graduating with honors. Johnson was born in 1918 in West Virginia. Mathematician Katherine Johnson's life is one marked with many breakthroughs and contributions to the United States' success in space flight.
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