Katherine G. Johnson (In History) - August 26th, 1918 – Present

Graduating from West Virginia State College summa cum laude with a degree in French and Mathematics, Katherine Johnson went on to become a teacher. Katherine G. Johnson started working for NASA with the tracking teams of manned and unmanned orbital missions. Ms. Johnson is an Aerospace Technologist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Langley Research Center. She has worked on challenging problems of interplanetary trajectories, space navigation, and the orbits of spacecraft. The spacecraft include the Earth Resources Satellite, which has helped locate underground minerals and other earth resources. Ms. Johnson analyzed data gathered by tracking stations around the world during the lunar orbital missions -- the Apollo moon missions. Later, she studied new navigation procedures to determine more practical ways to track manned and unmanned space missions. For her pioneering work in the field of navigation problems, she was the recipient of the Group Achievement Award presented to NASA's Lunar Spacecraft and Operations team as well as many other awards.

Sites referencing Katherine G. Johnson:
http://www.planet-science.com/text_only/outthere/black_history/johnson.html

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1411/
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