Can you tell me important facts about Peggy A. Whitson?

Peggy Annette Whitson was born February 9, 1960, Mount Ayr, Iowa, U. S.

She was the first female commander of the International Space Station.

She holds the record among American astronauts and among women for spending the most time in space, nearly 666 days.

She received a B. S. in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1981 and a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in Houston in 1985.

She flew into space for the first time on June 5, 2002, as a flight engineer on Expedition 5 to the ISS, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-111.

She, from 2009 to 2012, Whitson was chief of the Astronaut Office, which oversees all NASA astronaut activities, including crew selection and training.

She was the first woman and the first civilian to hold that position.

She was sent into space 3 times.

Her total of 10 career spacewalks and their combined duration of 60 hours 21 minutes were records for a female astronaut.

She retired from NASA in 2018.