Astronaut Peggy Whitson retires from NASA

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Astronaut Peggy Whitson retires from NASA

Peggy Whitson retired from NASA on June 15, 2018, after 32 years with the space agency—22 as an astronaut. Between 2002 and 2017, she participated in three long-duration International Space Station expeditions, accumulating 665 days orbit—a record for any U.S. space flyer.

Whitson, now 58, concluded her most recent mission in September 2017. Her nine-month stay aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 50, 51 and 52 was the longest for any woman and included multiple spacewalks.

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Gallery: Soyuz MS-04 crew back on Earth

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Gallery: Soyuz MS-04 crew back on Earth

Blazing through Earth’s atmosphere and coming to a parachute assisted touchdown in Kazakhstan, three International Space Station crew members returned home in their Soyuz MS-04 capsule. The landing took place at 9:21 p.m. EDT Sept. 2 (7:21 a.m. local time / 01:21 GMT Sept. 3), 2017.

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Space station trio returns to Earth in Soyuz MS-04

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Space station trio returns to Earth in Soyuz MS-04

Three members of Expedition 52 returned to Earth inside their Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft. The landing took at 9:21 p.m. EDT Sept. 2 (7:21 a.m. Kazakh Time / 01:21 GMT Sept. 3), 2017, in Kazakhstan. Returning were NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, as well as Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin. The latter two have been in space since April 2017, while Whitson has been living aboard the outpost since November 2016 – nearly 10 months.

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Contingency spacewalk required to replace failed relay box

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Contingency spacewalk required to replace failed relay box

A data relay box failure outside the International Space Station has prompted mission managers to begin planning a contingency spacewalk. On Tuesday, May 23, 2017, NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer will venture outside the Quest airlock to replace the failed component.

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'Space ninja' Peggy Whitson sets space duration record, Trump congratulates

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'Space ninja' Peggy Whitson sets space duration record, Trump congratulates

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has broken the space duration record set by Jeff Williams last year by surpassing 534 cumulative days in space over her three long-duration missions.

Whitson is currently aboard the ISS on her third long-duration mission and is the current commander of the outpost. She launched in November 2016 and is new expected to stay in space through early September 2017, a three-month extension to her original flight plan. She broke the duration record at 1:17 a.m. EDT (05:17 GMT) April 24, 2017.

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Peggy Whitson's ISS stay gets 3-month extension

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Peggy Whitson's ISS stay gets 3-month extension

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s stay aboard the International Space Station has been extended by three months through Expedition 52, adding to her already record-breaking mission.

Instead of returning to Earth in June 2017 with the Soyuz MS-03 capsule she launched in along side Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, 57-year-old Whitson will remain aboard the ISS and fly home in September 2017 with the crew of Soyuz MS-04, which will have a vacant seat.

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EVA-41 spacewalkers outfit relocated docking module

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EVA-41 spacewalkers outfit relocated docking module

An astronaut duo stepped outside the International Space Station in the second spacewalk in less than a week. Expedition 50 Commander Shane Kimbrough and Flight Engineer Peggy Whitson ventured outside on a 7-hour long spacewalk to outfit a recently relocated docking module to ready it for commercial crew spacecraft sometime in 2018.

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ISS Expedition 50 crew preps for January spacewalks

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ISS Expedition 50 crew preps for January spacewalks

With the Japanese Kounotori 6 cargo craft firmly attached to the International Space Station's Harmony module, the six-person Expedition 50 crew is heading into the holiday weekend with images of spacewalk preparations dancing in their heads.

U.S. Extravehicular Activity 38 will occur Jan 6 and EVA-39 Jan 13. Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet will be the astronaut duo performing the spacewalk. The goal of the two EVAs is to replace 12 old nickel-hydrogen batteries with six new lithium-ion batteries on the station's Integrated Truss Assembly.

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