Eileen Collins

Eileen Collins (b. 19 November, 1956) was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. She was born in Elmira, New York and says she wanted to fly the shuttle since she was a little girl.

Collins first flew the shuttle as pilot in 1995 aboard STS-63, which involved a rendezvous between Discovery and the Russian space station Mir.

Collins also commanded STS-93, launched in July 1999, which deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This was shuttle Columbia's next-to-last completed mission, the final one being STS-109, which flew in March 2002.

Collins is slated to command STS-114.

External links

Official Bio (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/collins.html)
STS-93 (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-93/)

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