NASA astronaut and director Ellen Ochoa awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

The primary Hispanic girl to launch into area is now the second feminine astronaut to be awarded the US’ highest honor.

Ellen Ochoa, who later directed NASA’s Johnson House Heart in Houston, was bestowed with the Presidential Medal of Freedom throughout a ceremony on the White Home on Friday (Could 3). Ochoa is the tenth astronaut to obtain the medal.

“For many, the American dream is to achieve success in no matter endeavor you select right here on Earth. For Dr. Ellen Ochoa, her dream was within the heavens,” mentioned President Joe Biden, who presided over the ceremony. “Ellen was the primary Hispanic girl to go to area, ushering in an entire new age of area exploration and what it means for each technology to achieve for the celebs.”

People chosen for the Presidential Medal of Freedom have considerably contributed to the prosperity, values or safety of the US, world peace or different societal, public or personal endeavors, in keeping with the White Home.

“Wow, what an sudden and superb honor!” mentioned Ochoa, upon first listening to that she was going to be honored, in keeping with a press release issued by NASA. “I am so grateful for all my superb NASA colleagues who shared my profession journey with me.”

Associated: Pioneering girls in area: A gallery of astronaut firsts

Ochoa was working as a analysis engineer at NASA’s Ames Analysis Heart in California when she was chosen with the company’s thirteenth group of astronauts in 1990. She flew on 4 area shuttle missions between 1993 and 2002, logging greater than 40 days in Earth orbit.

Throughout Ochoa’s first flight, STS-56, she used the area shuttle’s robotic arm to deploy and retrieve a satellite tv for pc that noticed the solar’s outer ambiance, the corona. The mission was dedicated to accumulating knowledge in regards to the relationship between the solar’s vitality output and Earth’s ambiance and the way these components affected the planet’s ozone layer.

On her subsequent three missions, STS-66, STS-96 and STS-110, Ochoa continued to help within the examine of Earth’s ambiance; she was among the many first astronauts to enter the Worldwide House Station; and later helped set up a section of the station’s spine truss.

Ochoa was the 18th U.S. girl to launch into area and twenty second worldwide. She was the 295th particular person to depart Earth’s ambiance and the 288th to enter orbit, as recorded within the Affiliation of House Explorers’ Registry of House Vacationers.

In 2013, Ochoa was named the eleventh director of NASA’s Johnson House Heart, dwelling to mission management and the U.S. astronaut corps. Solely the second girl to carry the place, Ochoa served for 5 years, throughout which she oversaw the choice of the primary crews to launch on business spacecraft and first yearlong mission aboard the Worldwide House Station.

Along with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Ochoa has been acknowledged for her position within the U.S. area program with NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal, and in 2017 was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Corridor of Fame in Florida. Faculties bear her title in the present day in California, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington.