Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson: engineer, physicist, mathematician and space scientist

At the age of 14, he was already attending university at West Virginia State College, known for having among its faculty several of the first African Americans to pursue careers and doctorates in science in the United States. One of her mentors was precisely Angie Turner King, one of the first black women to graduate in chemistry and mathematics and defend a doctoral thesis. In 1937, Katherine obtained the university degree in Mathematics with the highest honors (summa cum laude) and for two years she dedicated herself to teaching in public schools for the black community.

It wasn't until 1952 that Katherine learned that NACA's Langley Research Center (forerunner of NASA) was hiring both white and African-American mathematicians for the Guidance and Navigation department, which she joined at next year

Katherine's first tasks consisted of analyzing flight test data from aircraft black boxes to study their stability in turbulent air flows. His knowledge of analytical geometry enabled him to move into other departments such as the Flight Research Division, which was staffed exclusively by white engineers.

In 1958, NASA eliminated racial segregation in dining halls, restrooms, and other spaces, although discrimination against African Americans persisted in more subtle forms. Katherine, however, ignored this situation and fought for her place firmly, such as when she demanded to be allowed access to briefings with NASA high command, which a woman had never attended before. woman, or when she insisted on co-authoring the reports she was writing with engineer Ted Skopinski, being the first calculator in the Division to get it.

From 1958 until her retirement, Katherine worked as an aerospace researcher calculating the orbits, trajectories and return points of some of the most important missions at the start of the space race. In 1961, within the Space Working Group, he calculated the trajectory and launch window of the *suborbital flight of Alan *Shepard, the first American in space.

In 1969, Katherine Johnson calculated the trajectory of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on its way to the Moon, carrying inside the first human beings (all men) who would set foot on our satellite. Likewise, he calculated the exact moment in which the lunar module *Eagle had to leave the lunar soil so that its trajectory coincided with the orbit of the Columbia ship, where the astronaut Michael Collins remained waiting for his companions Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Ship and capsule had to fit together perfectly to be able to return to Earth.

The following year, the emergency protocols and navigational charts developed by Katherine helped the Apollo 13 crew return home safe and sound after the mission failed.

In the last years of his career, Johnson worked on the Space Shuttle program and on future missions to Mars. During this period he received numerous prestigious awards, including the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor to be received by an American citizen and which was given to him by Barack Obama, the first black president in the country's history.

Katherine Johnson died on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101, and until the last moment of her life she was tireless in her work to promote equal opportunities for girls and young people in STEM fields, especially inspiring black women who are still deeply underrepresented in these fields today.

This article, written by Sandra Benítez Herrera, was originally published in Revista Astronomia in March 2020