NASA's 1st female Dragon pilot retires after stellar career
NASA's Megan McArthur is officially retiring after more than two decades of breaking barriers in space.
Since joining NASA in 2000, she spent over 200 days off Earth, became the last person to use Hubble Space Telescope's robotic arm in 2009, and was the first woman to pilot a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
McArthur's journey to becoming an astronaut
McArthur's journey started with engineering at UCLA and a Ph.D. in oceanography from UC San Diego.
She kicked off her astronaut career by serving as the lead robotics operator on mission STS-125, using the space shuttle's robotic arm to support five spacewalks that kept the Hubble running longer.
Her final mission and other notable achievements
In 2021, she piloted SpaceX Crew-2 and lived on the ISS for nearly 200 days running science experiments.
Later, as Deputy Chief of NASA's Astronaut Office, she helped train new astronauts.
After leaving NASA, McArthur took on a new mission as chief science officer at Space Center Houston—working to inspire future scientists.
Fun fact: she's married to fellow astronaut Robert Behnken from the historic SpaceX Demo-2 mission.