Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when she flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in June 1983.
Ride was selected as an astronaut in NASA’s first astronaut group to include women, the 1978 class. Her first mission, STS-7, launched on June 18, 1983, and lasted nearly seven days. The crew deployed satellites and operated the shuttle’s robotic arm.
Ride later flew on STS-41-G in 1984. She left NASA in 1987 and became a physics professor at the University of California, San Diego, where she studied nonlinear optics. She also founded Sally Ride Science to encourage young people, especially girls, to study science and mathematics.
Ride was the first American woman in space, not the first woman overall. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova held that distinction in 1963.