In photos: Record-breaking NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson

By Hanneke Weitering
last updated

Peggy Whitson and Thomas Pesquet in BEAM

NASA

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet inside the BEAM inflatable habitat that attached to the International Space Station.

Astronauts play ping-pong with water in Ultra HD

NASA/NAB

NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer play ping-pong with balls of water at the International Space Station on April 26, 2017.

Peggy Whitson works on veggie space record

NASA

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson harvests cabbage from the Veggie facility on board the International Space Station.

In the cupola window

NASA

Astronaut Peggy Whitson floats in the cupola on board the International Space Station, backdropped by the Earth below.

Traditional dolls

Bill Ingalls/NASA

Matryoshka Dolls representing Expedition 52 crewmembers Peggy Whitson (left), Fyodor Yurchikhin (center) and Jack Fischer (right) are seen at the Karaganda Airport welcome ceremony in Kazakhstan.

Expedition 51 crew

NASA

Expedition 51 is comprised of five crewmembers: from the left, Jack Fischer, Fyodor Yurchikhin, Thomas Pesquet, Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitskiy.

Expedition 52 crew

ESA/NASA

The Expedition 52 crew poses for a portrait at the International Space Station. Pictured clockwise from top right: Paolo Nespoli, Jack Fischer, Peggy Whitson, Sergey Ryazanskiy, Randy Bresnik and Fyodor Yurchikhin.

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.