In June 2025, a 65-year-old former NASA astronaut named Peggy Whitson became the oldest woman ever to orbit Earth — taking off aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon as commander of the privately funded Axiom Mission 4 — and during her 18-day stay on the International Space Station, she pushed her career total past 695 cumulative days in space, the most of any American astronaut and the most of any woman who has ever lived.

In June 2025, a 65-year-old former NASA astronaut named Peggy Whitson became the oldest woman ever to orbit Earth — taking off aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon as commander of the privately funded Axiom Mission 4 — and during her 18-day stay on the International Space Station, she pushed her career total past 695 cumulative days in space, the most of any American astronaut and the most of any woman who has ever lived.

The numbers behind Peggy Whitson’s career do not, by themselves, capture the unusual shape of it. She is, by total time in orbit, the most experienced American astronaut alive — ahead of every man and woman the agency has ever flown. She is the most experienced female astronaut in the history of spaceflight, ahead of every Russian cosmonaut, every European astronaut, and every Chinese taikonaut who has ever reached orbit. She is the only woman t…