Who Is Megan McArthur, the First Woman to Pilot NASA's SpaceX Dragon?

All systems are go for NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, who piloted a SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station and returned to Earth on that vehicle as a member of the Crew-2 mission and is retiring this week following more than two decades at the space agency. A human spaceflight pioneer who flew in space twice, for a combined 213 days in orbit, and whose legacy stretched from the shuttle program to the commercial crew program. McArthur was also the last astronaut to “touch” the Hubble Space Telescope using the shuttle's robotic arm in its final servicing mission.

From Hubble to Artemis: Megan McArthur's Space Legacy and Leadership Beyond the Stars

According to a NASA press release issued on August 29, McArthur's most recent flight was as the pilot for SpaceX's Crew-2 mission in April 2021, her second trip into orbit. During her 200 days on the International Space Station, she served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 65/66 and participated in research that may help inform our understanding of physical and mental health, robotics, and material science. It was fantastically and literally a ground-up project, a fresh addition to the Artemis program to take humans back to the moon and later to Mars.

She flew aboard STS-125 in 2009, the mission to prolong the life of the Hubble Space Telescope. This mission was a true rip-the-envelope-open for our understanding of the universe and a basic proof of concept for science and engineering.

McArthur was a NASA senior executive, deputy division chief, and assistant director for flight operations. As of 2022, her position is Chief Science Officer of Space Centre Houston, where she works to encourage interest in space among the general public.

A former Navy pilot with degrees from UCLA in aerospace engineering and oceanography, McArthur is married to retired astronaut Robert Behnken and is still an inspiration to young explorers.