Summer Worden Pled Guilty to Falsely Accusing Her Astronaut Wife of Crime on the ISS

It seems that the space has returned to its status as a crime-free zone for the time being, with Summer Worden pleading guilty to falsely accusing her wife, NASA Astronaut Anne McClain, of illegally opening her bank account while on an International Space Station mission. She now faces up to 5 years in the can and a maximum fine of a quarter million dollars.

Anne McClain went through her NASA initiation in 2013. Her first spaceflight wasn’t until five years later, launching on December 3, 2018, aboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft for Expedition 58/59 to the International Space Station (ISS). Then, in March 2025, she returned to space as commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, bringing her total off-Earth time to 350 days. And, as if NASA astronaut wasn’t an impressive enough title, McClain is also a Colonel and Master Aviator in the US Army. She has built more than 2,000 flight hours across the service’s OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, C-12 Huron, UH-60 Blackhawk, and UH-72 Lakota fleets.

Clearly, McClain has built a solid reputation for herself… and her estranged wife has set out to tarnish it. Summer Worden came forward in July 2019, boldly alleging that McClain “had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while… deployed to the International Space Station,” according to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.

In the six years since, Worden went from being spotlighted for accusing her wife of committing the first-ever space crime to being proven wrong to having her false claims thrown back in her face in more ways than you can imagine. Investigations quickly revealed that McClain had been given credentials to the account when it was created by Worden in April 2018, and simply maintained access to ensure their child's needs were met.

Worden was indicted by a grand jury in 2020 on charges of making false statements. She pleaded guilty to lying to law enforcement on November 13 and is set for sentencing on February 12, 2026.

FMI: www.nasa.gov