Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an American physicist, space scientist, and mathematician, who made fundamental contributions to the United States’ aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA.
Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, her technical work at NASA spanned decades where she calculated the trajectories, launch windows and emergency back-up return paths for many flights from Project Mercury including the early NASA missions of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, and continued work through the Space Shuttle program and on early plans for the Mission to Mars.