NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has spent over a year on the International Space Station in two six-month Expeditions. She was part of Expedition 5 in 2002 on a Space Shuttle to the Station and returned to the Station in 2007 on a Soyuz. Both Expeditions were notable for being a busy period of assembly. Peggy installed the truss ‘backbone’ of the Space Station on her first mission and even did a spacewalk with the Russian Orlan spacesuit. On her second mission where she completed five spacewalks to add the Harmony node, ESA’s Columbus laboratory, the Japanese Kibo laboraraty and Canada’s robotic arm Dextre.
A biochemist by education, Peggy has a PhD and many awards as well as two patents to her name. Peggy will take over command of the Space Station for a second time in during the Proxima mission as Expedition 51 commander.