• NASA reported Tuesday that astronaut Jeanette Epps will launch aboard Boeing’s new CST-100 Starliner spaceship in 2021.
• Epps has not but flown to place, but the Starliner-1 mission could make her the initially Black person to stay and function aboard the Worldwide Place Station for months at a time.
• NASA previously picked Epps for a 2018 flight, but the company abruptly taken out her from that mission just months in advance of its launch.
• Epps is just one of 16 lively woman astronauts who may well a single day land on the moon with NASA’s Artemis software.
• Stop by Business enterprise Insider’s homepage for additional tales.

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps could finally be touring to room.

The agency mentioned Tuesday that it has assigned the 49-calendar year-aged rookie astronaut to Boeing’s Starliner-1 mission, slated to start sometime in 2021.

The mission is really the next that NASA picked Epps to fly. But she hardly ever made the initial 1, a Russian Soyuz flight that lifted off in June 2018, for the reason that the company abruptly bumped her from the crew about 5 months ahead of start.

“I never know exactly where the selection came from and how it was built, in detail, or at what amount,” Epps reported during a meeting in 2018 conference, but observed it was not medically associated. “There ended up Russians, a number of of them, who defended me in the sense that it really is not risk-free to definitely eliminate a person from a crew that has trained alongside one another for many years.”

NASA informed Business Insider in a assertion that a “variety of components are regarded when earning flight assignments,” introducing that “selections are staff matters for which NASA would not give details.”

Inspite of the disappointing transform of activities, Epps held her composure more than the a long time.

“Sometimes issues don’t go the way that you prepared,” she informed “Organization Insider Today” in 2019. “But I am however in the astronaut corps.”

With her fresh new assignment, Epps is the moment once more poised to make record. The mission is to scheduled to be the very first operational flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which must comply with an uncrewed start (probably later this yr) and a crewed flight test in 2021.

Epps may perhaps turn out to be the initial Black particular person to are living and do the job aboard the ISS

NASA picked Epps, an aerospace engineer, to be an astronaut in 2009. Prior to that, she labored at Ford Motor Organization as a analysis scientist in advance of transferring on to the Central Intelligence Company, wherever she was as a technical intelligence officer for much more than 7 decades, in accordance to her biography.

The Starliner-1 mission’s destination is the Worldwide House Station, a facility that orbits 250 miles higher than Earth, and which men and women have inhabited continuously for 20 several years. During her planned 6-month remain there, Epps would turn into the very first Black astronaut to dwell and do the job aboard the $150 billion, soccer discipline-measurement laboratory for far more than a couple of months at a time.

Epps has not nonetheless flown to house. She will join fellow spaceflight rookie Josh Cassada and veteran Sunita Williams. Williams, the Starliner-1 mission’s commander, has worked with Boeing and SpaceX around the previous 6 several years on the design and style and features of their new spaceships as a result of NASA’s Professional Crew System.

“I can’t wait for her to join our crew,” Williams mentioned in a video she tweeted on Tuesday.

Cassada tweeted a humorous video congratulating Epps, who grew up in Michigan, on her crew assignment.

“Just a couple of items I assume we need to have to get sorted out. I know we the two declare Michigan, I am not heading to arm-wrestle you for it — I have found you in the health and fitness center. So maybe we can break up it?” Cassada claimed. “The only other thing we have to have to get sorted out is, on the Starliner, I contact shotgun.”

Starliner launched and landed on its to start with uncrewed mission, referred to as Orbital Flight Take a look at, in December 2019. On the other hand, the spacecraft professional two “high visibility near phone calls” that could possibly have resulted in the decline of the spacecraft, NASA explained previously this year.

Boeing is now correcting its software package, techniques, and procedures to rectify the complications, and — at a price of $410 million to the business — ideas to refly the mission afterwards this yr. Assuming there are no more troubles, veteran astronaut Mike Fincke, retired astronaut Chris Ferguson, and rookie astronaut Nicole Mann will fly the initially experimental crewed flight in 2021.

NASA seems unfazed by a little air leak aboard the ISS, which a a few-individual crew is now supporting root out and repair service. The company strategies to launch its next business crewed mission, named Crew-1 — SpaceX’s possess to start with operational flight of its business spaceship, called Crew Dragon — towards the house station as quickly as October 23. (SpaceX correctly flew and returned its initially astronaut crew before this yr.)

The Starliner-1 mission could demonstrate specifically important to Epps’ occupation, in that she is one particular of 16 energetic woman astronauts in NASA’s corps who may perhaps return human beings to the moon. Jim Bridenstine, the agency’s administrator, has frequently said NASA’s Artemis plan will fly the initially female and the subsequent person to the lunar surface in 2024.

“Company Insider These days” asked Epps about that possibility throughout a 2019 interview.

“It truly is brain-blowing to consider about being the first [woman] to move on this item that you see in the evening sky,” she stated. “I would hope that my mission would inspire the subsequent generation of gals, of all engineers and all researchers to form of propel us forward, even outside of Mars.”

This story has been up to date with new details.