(Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
In Writing
UPDATED AT 19:55 PT – Saturday, February 20, 2021
NASA launched the SS space shuttle Katherine Johnson, which was named after the math that appears in the movie “Hidden Figures.” On Saturday, the space station’s supply ship fired into orbit in Virginia on the 59th anniversary of astronaut John Glenn’s historic launch.
HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 26: NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson (C) and director Ezra Edelman (R) and producer Caroline Waterlow (L). (Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
SS Katherine Johnson contained approximately 8,000 pounds of supplies for the International Space Station. The rocket was launched just 100 miles from NASA’s Langley Research Center, the office where Johnson worked.
Johnson’s expertise in mathematics contributed to the success of Glenn’s launch on February 20, 1962, when he became the first American to orbit the planet Earth. The trajectory of the rocket was calculated primarily by computers, but Glenn asked Johnson to check the orbital calculations by hand.
The release also occurred near the first anniversary of Johnson’s death. He was 101 years old. Johnson’s mathematics also helped NASA send astronauts to the moon and back.
“His job was to take a Monroe or Freedom calculator,” Johnson’s daughter, Joylette Goble, said. “And do the big equations, which could last a page.”
The rocket is expected to arrive at the International Space Station on Monday and is the second installment the International Space Station received this week. A Russian capsule with apples and oranges, among other supplies, was reportedly withdrawn last week.