Women in space
Women of many nationalities have worked in space. The first woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, flew in 1963. Space flight programs were slow to employ women, and only began to include them from the 1980s. Most women in space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Three countries maintain active space programs that include women: China, Russia, and the United States of America. In addition, a number of other countries — Canada, France, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom — have sent women into orbit or space on Russian or US missions.
Ellen Ochoa
Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman in the world to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1993. The purpose of the shuttle mission was to study the Earth's ozone layer. A veteran of four space flights, Ochoa has logged nearly 40d 19h 36m in space. She was a mission specialist on STS-56 (1993), was payload commander on STS-66, and was mission specialist and flight engineer on STS-96 and STS-110 in 2002. Ochoa was in Mission Control during the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and was one of the first personnel informed of television coverage showing Columbia's disintegration.