NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is on the verge of becoming the oldest woman in space, adding to her long list of barrier-breaking records.
Whitson will be 56 when she rockets off the planet Thursday Nov 17,2016
Peggy Whitson will celebrate her 57th birthday in February on the International Space Station(ISS)
This will be the third space station mission for Peggy Whitson, an Iowa-born biochemist, and her second stint as commander. She'll launch from Kazakhstan with two younger men, Russian and French.
Peggy Whitson will ride a Soyuz rocket with a Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Novitskiy, 45, and a French newcomer to space, Thomas Pesquet, who's 38.
The launch is 3:20 pm EST Thursday, 2:20 am Friday in Kazakhstan.
Peggy Whitson was the first woman to serve as commander of the space station - in 2007, nine years into its lifetime. She also was the first - and so far only - woman to head NASA's male-dominated astronaut corps. No other woman has spent more time in space.
Peggy Whitson already has spent 377 days in space and performed multiple spacewalks. Her upcoming six-month mission should push her beyond 534 days in space, the US record set in September by 58-year-old astronaut Jeffrey Williams.
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