Lt Col Eileen Collins

Lt Col Eileen Collins, Eileen Marie Collins (b. November 19, 1956 in Elmira, New York) is a retired American astronaut and a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel. A former military instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. She was awarded several medals for her work. Col. Collins has logged 38 days 8 hours and 10 minutes in outer space. Collins retired on May 1, 2006 to pursue private interests, including service as a board member of USAA.

Collins was selected to be an astronaut in 1992 and first flew the Space Shuttle as pilot in 1995 aboard STS-63, which involved a rendezvous between Discovery and the Russian space station Mir. In recognition of her achievement as the first female Shuttle Pilot, she received the Harmon Trophy. She was also the pilot for STS-84 in 1997.

Mission Commander Collins and STS-114 crew on their way to launch pad.
Collins was also the first female commander of a U.S. Spacecraft with Shuttle mission STS-93, launched in July 1999, which deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Collins commanded STS-114, NASA’s “return to flight” mission to test safety improvements and resupply the International Space Station (ISS). The flight was launched on July 26, 2005, and returned on August 9, 2005. During STS-114, Collins became the first astronaut to fly the space shuttle through a complete 360-degree pitch maneuver. This was necessary so astronauts aboard the ISS could take photographs of the shuttle’s belly, to ensure there was no threat from debris-related damage to the shuttle upon reentry.

First Female Space Shuttle Commander

First Female Space Shuttle Commander, Though dozens of women have flown on the space shuttle during the course of its 30-year career, only two have commanded the spaceship.

Those two are NASA astronauts Eileen Collins, who led the STS-93 flight of the shuttle Columbia in July 1999, and Pamela Melroy, who commanded the STS-120 mission of Discovery in November 2007.

Because becoming a shuttle commander requires previous spaceflight experience, as well as at least 1,000 hours experience piloting a jet aircraft, fewer women have achieved this position than those that have flown as mission specialists.

With NASA planning to retire the space shuttles after the final flight of Atlantis July 8, no further chances will arise for women to command the reusable space planes. However, both Collins and Melroy expressed the hope that more women could become commanders of future American spacecraft as NASA embarks on a new mission to explore asteroids, the moon and Mars.

Collins was born in 1956 in Elmira, N.Y. She has masters degrees in operations research and space systems management, and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in January 1990
first spaceflight, the STS-63 mission of Discovery in February 1995, Collins became the first female space shuttle pilot, a second-in-command position behind the commander. After another flight, the May 1997 voyage of Atlantis, Collins became the first female space shuttle commander on the STS-93 mission of the shuttle Columbia.

“I was just doing my job — a job I loved,” Collins told SPACE.com. “I was very mission-oriented, I always focused on the safety of the mission, the accuracy, what is our mission statement, are we fulfilling that. I never really thought that much about, OK, I’m a woman and this is the first time a woman has flown as a pilot, the first time a woman has flown as commander.”