Trendsetting RTF Commander Flew On Four Shuttle Missions

She was the first woman ever to command a space shuttle mission, and she led last year's triumphant -- and nail-biting -- return to flight of the space shuttle Discovery. No one can say Eileen Collins' career at NASA has lacked excitement... and on Monday, Collins announced she is leaving the space agency for less-harrowing pursuits.

Collins, 49, told NASA officials she is leaving NASA -- and a career she began in 1990 -- in order to spend more time with her family, and pursue other interests.

"Eileen is a living, breathing example of the best our nation has to offer," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said. "She is, of course, a brave superb pilot and a magnificent crew commander."

Collins -- an accomplished pilot with over 6,751 hours in 30 different types of aircraft -- became the first female shuttle pilot in 1995, on Discovery. That mission, STS-63, was also the first flight of the new joint Russian-American Space Program, and included a rendezvous with Russia's Mir space station -- a trip Collins repeated on her second shuttle flight, aboard Atlantis in 1997.

After piloting the shuttle, Collins was in the commander's seat for her third shuttle mission -- STS-93, aboard Columbia in 1999. That mission, the first NASA mission to be commanded by a woman, was highlighted by the deployment of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Of course, Collins is best-known for her command of STS-114, the "Return-to-Flight" mission onboard Discovery last July. Throughout the flight, Collins displayed a face of calm and professionalism in light of disturbing revelations about new problems with the shuttle's ceramic tiles -- caused by foam breakage problems eerily similar to those that doomed Columbia two years before, problems NASA believed had been corrected.

After a two-week, 5.8 million-mile journey in space that was in the spotlight nearly every moment, Collins and her crew of six other astronauts returned to land in a fiery but thoroughly routine nighttime landing August 9, 2005 at Edwards Air Force Base, CA.

Collins is a noted member of several aerospace organizations, including the Air Force Association, Order of Daedalians, Women Military Aviators, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Women In Aviation International, and the Ninety-Nines.

FMI: Read Eileen Collins' NASA Bio