Peggy Whitson
Peggy Annette Whitson is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut, and former NASA Chief Astronaut. Her first space mission was in 2002, with an extended stay aboard the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 5. On her second mission, she became first female commander of the ISS with Expedition 16. In 2017, Whitson became the first female astronaut to command the International Space Station twice, and broke the record for the longest single space flight by a woman at 289 days in orbit before returning aboard Soyuz MS-04. This record was broken by Christina Koch's flight, which lasted 328 days. Whitson holds the records for the oldest woman spacewalker and the record for total spacewalks by a woman. Whitson's cumulative EVA time is 60 hours, 21 minutes, which places her in 5th place for total EVA time. At age 57 on her final flight, she was also the oldest female astronaut ever in space at that time, and remains the oldest woman to fly in Earth orbit.
