Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space during NASA’s STS-7 mission in June 1983.
Ride launched aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger from Kennedy Space Center on June 18, 1983. The mission lasted about six days and deployed two communications satellites, while also carrying the first Shuttle Pallet Satellite. Ride served as a mission specialist.
Before joining NASA, Ride studied physics and English at Swarthmore College and earned advanced degrees in physics at Stanford University. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1978, in NASA’s first astronaut class to include women. Her historic flight made her the third woman overall to travel into space, after Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya.
Ride flew again on STS-41-G in 1984 and retired from NASA in 1987. She later worked as a physics professor and science educator. Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space in 1992, nearly a decade after Ride’s milestone.