Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission. Collins earned a degree in mathematics and economics from Syracuse University in 1978, and was commissioned as an officer in the US Air Force (USAF) through the University’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. She was one of four women chosen for Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base. Collins worked as a military pilot and instructor, and in 1989 became the second woman pilot to attend the USAF Test Pilot School. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 1990, Collins became the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle in 1995 for the STS-63 (Space Transportation System) mission, which involved a space rendezvous between Space Shuttle Discovery and the Russian space station Mir. In 1999, she became the first woman to command a Space Shuttle mission, leading STS-93, which deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory, one of NASA’s Great Observatories. Collins also commanded STS-114 in 2005, NASA’s first Space Shuttle mission following the Columbia disaster. She retired from the USAF in January 2005 with the rank of colonel, and from NASA in May 2006.
