![]() ![]() Johnson considered her work on the Apollo moon missions to be her greatest contribution to space exploration. "Katherine organized herself immediately at her desk, growing phone-book-thick stacks of data sheets a number at a time, blocking out everything except the labyrinth of trajectory equations," Margot Lee Shetterly wrote in her 2016 book "Hidden Figures," on which the film is based. "Get the girl to check the numbers," a computer-skeptical Glenn had insisted in the days before the launch. The next year, she manually verified the calculations of a nascent NASA computer, an IBM 7090, which plotted John Glenn's orbits around the planet. In 1961, Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mission, the first to carry an American into space. "You tell me when and where you want it to come down, and I will tell you where and when and how to launch it." "Our office computed all the (rocket) trajectories," Johnson told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in 2012. But her work at NASA's Langley Research Center eventually shifted to Project Mercury, the nation's first human space program. ![]() Johnson focused on airplanes and other research at first. Signs had dictated which bathrooms the women could use. Johnson and other black women initially worked in a racially segregated computing unit in Hampton, Virginia, that wasn't officially dissolved until NACA became NASA in 1958. Johnson was one of the "computers" who solved equations by hand during NASA's early years and those of its precursor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Her story and her grace continue to inspire the world." No cause was given.īridenstine tweeted that the NASA family "will never forget Katherine Johnson's courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter that she died Monday morning. HAMPTON, Virginia - Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA's early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film "Hidden Figures," about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. A fitting honour for someone who’s work has impacted so much of modern science.Katerine Johnson was known as a 'hidden figure' inside the space agency as she calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and Apollo 11. And she and her colleagues were also the focus of the 2016 film Hidden Figures. Johnson’s contributions to the history of space travel went relatively unrecognised for decades, but in 2015 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama, the highest civilian honour the United States gives. And when Apollo 13 announced that “Houston, we have a problem”, Johnson’s work on backup procedures helped to get them home safely. Johnson was involved in the first mission that put men on the moon, helping to calculate their launch trajectory. ![]() When electronic computers began to be used at NASA, astronaut John Glenn refused to accept the figures until they had been checked by Johnson, stating “If she says the numbers are good, I’m ready to go”. Johnson calculated the trajectory for the rocket, and the launch window for Alan Sheppard’s 1961 mission that made him the first American in space. Overcoming the barriers faced by black women in the sciences, Johnson’s work is part of so many iconic moments in NASA’s history. She calculated the trajectories rockets needed to be launched at, and even the times at which it was possible to launch them at all. Eventually, it was impossible to ignore her mathematical skill and she began assisting with NASA spaceflights, although she still faced pervasive discrimination. She spent her time there segregated by both her race, and her gender. She began work at NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, where she was a human computer, reading the black box data from aeroplanes. Johnson was renowned for her mathematical abilities. ![]() Adam Murphy has been reflecting on her contribution to the space race…Īdam - Katherine Johnson, legendary NASA mathematician, passed away on February 24th at the age of 101. Indeed, some astronauts refused to fly unless she’d personally looked at the figures. It was her calculations that got men to the moon, and safely home again. We were saddened to hear of the recent death of NASA’s mathematical legend, Katherine Johnson. ![]()
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