Who is Peggy Whitson? record-holding NASA astronaut leads Axiom 4 mission to ISS

• Whitson, 65, is leading a crew of spacefarers selected for the latest Axiom Space mission to the International Space Station.
• Coming more than two years after her most recent spaceflight, the Axiom Mission 4 venture represents Whitson's fifth-ever trip to the International Space Station.
• In the course of her spacefaring career, Whitson has accumulated a number of accolades and records for NASA.

Peggy Whitson has spent hundreds of days in the past two-plus decades living among the stars during her illustrious career with both NASA and now Axiom Space.

So, what's two more weeks?

Whitson, a veteran astronaut and two-time commander of the International Space Station, is on her way back to the orbital outpost for her fifth-ever stint. The cosmic voyage, coming seven years after her retirement from NASA, is her second with Axiom Space – a commercial spaceflight company based in Houston, Texas.

The expedition, known as Axiom Mission 4, got off the ground in the early hours of Wednesday, June 25, following the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. Now that the Dragon capsule Whitson and her crew is aboard has separated from the rocket, the spacecraft will spend the next day completing a trip to the space station.

In the meantime, here's everything to know about Peggy Whitson and her storied career as both a government and now private astronaut.

Who is Peggy Whitson? NASA astronaut leads Axiom mission

Whitson, 65, is leading a crew of spacefarers selected for the latest Axiom Space mission to the International Space Station.

Under Whitson's command are pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and two mission specialists: Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, who is part of the European Space Agency's reserve astronaut class, and Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer from Hungary.

This mission marks the first government-sponsored spaceflight in more than 40 years for India, Poland and Hungary. Shukla, Uznański-Wiśniewski and Kapu would also be the first spacefarers from each nation to ever reach the orbital laboratory.

When they reach the station, the astronauts of Ax-4 are due to spend about 14 days conducting scientific experiments in microgravity on behalf of organizations around the world.

Born in Iowa, Whitson was selected in 1996 to begin training as a NASA astronaut. She retired from NASA in 2018 before embarking on another spaceflight career in the private sector.

After joining Axiom Space as the company's director of human spaceflight, Whitson became the first female commander of a commercial space mission in 2023 following the launch of Ax-2.

Whitson has been to International Space Station 4 times

Coming more than two years after her most recent spaceflight, the Axiom Mission 4 venture represents Whitson's fifth-ever trip to the International Space Station.

Whitson's first three spaceflight missions were as a NASA astronaut, beginning with Expedition 5 in 2002. Whitson served as a flight engineer during the six-month mission from June to December at the orbital outpost, during which she and two Russian cosmonauts conducted research into how microgravity affects plants and the human body.

In October 2007, Whitson returned to the space station for Expedition 16 – this time as the mission commander.

During the six-month rotation, Whitson helped conduct various research and also oversaw the first expansion of the station’s living and working space in more than six years. That included the addition of the Harmony module – still widely used for docking spacecraft to this day.

Whitson's final trip to space before retiring from NASA came in 2016, when she served as commander once again for Expedition 50. The lengthy voyage lasted 289 days and stretched into Expedition 51 and Expedition 52, during which time Whitson contributed to hundreds of scientific experiments.

What NASA records does Peggy Whitson hold?

In the course of her spacefaring career, Whitson has accumulated a number of accolades and records for NASA.

Only four NASA astronauts have spent more consecutive days in space than Whitson following her 289-day voyage between 2016 and 2017. Whitson's long-duration spaceflight, in fact, was just three days longer than that of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – the NASA astronauts who recently made headlines when their voyage aboard the Boeing Starliner led to an unexpected extended 286-day mission at the ISS.

But to this day, no American astronaut has spent more days in space overall than the cumulative 675 days Whitson has lived among the stars since 2002.

Earlier in 2025, Suni Williams surpassed Whitson's record for the most total time any woman has spent on spacewalks. After completing the ninth spacewalk of her career in late January, Williams has now spent 62 hours and 6 minutes suited up in the vacuum of space.

Williams' recent spacewalk, often referred to as extra-vehicular activity in space agency parlance, broke Whitson's record of 60 hours and 21 minutes set in 2017.

Whitson, though, still holds the records for the most spacewalks by any woman, with 10 made throughout her career.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]