Julie Payette

The International Space Station (ISS) has been continuously inhabited since November 2000, but Julie Payette got an early look in 1999 when she flew to the station aboard the space shuttle Discovery (STS-96). This historic mission marked the first time a space shuttle manually docked with the then-new ISS.
Alongside her team, Julie delivered an impressive 4,000 kilograms of supplies to support future expeditions.
A decade later, she returned to the ISS on the space shuttle Endeavour. This time, she brought with her an experimental platform designed for the Japanese laboratory Kibo, furthering the station's research capabilities. Julie’s contributions have played a vital role in advancing our understanding of space!

Did you know this about Julie?

• Before becoming an astronaut, she worked at the Canadian Space Agency on the robotic arm Canadarm2.

• Julie was the first Canadian to have a look aboard the ISS.

• When she was 19, she wanted to become a pilot in the Canadian Air Force. But at that time, no women were allowed to be pilots.

• As a scientist, she worked on language processing and speech recognition for computers.

• She is fluent in English and French, as well as Russian, Spanish, German and Italian.

• She must be good at gaming, because during her second shuttle mission, Julie operated three different robotic arms: Canadarm2, the space shuttle's robotic arm and a Japanese robotic arm.