It may be only a few days into 2017, but history has already been made! Astronaut Jeanette Epps has become the first Black American astronaut to board the International Space Station — how awesome is that?
Jeanette’s accomplishment is nothing to sneeze at, but Black women have been making strides in space for a while.
Other African American astronauts have been into space officially, (like Mae Jemison, the first Black woman astronaut ever with the space shuttle Endeavor) though Jeanette will be the first with ISS.
She’ll also be the 13th woman to be aboard the ISS as a crew member since the space station’s founding.
This is especially interesting timing, as the country is getting swept up by the magic of Hidden Figures, a film that highlights the role that Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson — three Black women working with NASA — played in launching John Glenn into space.