Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan (born October 3, 1951) is an American geologist, oceanographer, and former NASA astronaut and US Navy officer.

During her training, she became the first woman to be certified to wear a United States Air Force pressure suit, and on July 1, 1979, she set an unofficial sustained American aviation altitude record for women.

On June 7, 2020, Sullivan became the first woman to dive into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of Earth's oceans.

[3] In 1958 the family moved to the San Fernando Valley in California, where her father worked in the aerospace industry for Marquardt Corporation.

[4][6] Sullivan graduated from William Howard Taft High School in the Woodland Hills district of Los Angeles, California, in 1969.

She was an exchange student at the University of Bergen in Norway for the 1971–1972 school year and the two summers around it, and decided to change her major to oceanography.

[9] When Sullivan visited her family for Christmas in 1976, her brother Grant, an aerospace engineer and corporate jet pilot, told her that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had issued a call for applications for a new group of astronauts.

That prospect came closer when she received an offer from William B. F. Ryan from the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University to join his team exploring the ocean in the submersible DSV Alvin.

[10] Grant's application was unsuccessful, but Kathryn was invited to come to the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for a week of interviews and physical examinations commencing on November 14, 1977.

Sullivan was one of the three members of the group (the others being Sally Ride and Steve Hawley) for whom NASA astronaut would be their first full-time paid job since leaving university.

She became the first woman to be certified to wear a United States Air Force pressure suit,[15] and on July 1, 1979, she set an unofficial sustained American aviation altitude record for women of 19,000 metres (63,000 ft) during a four-hour flight in a NASA WB-57F reconnaissance aircraft.

[17] For the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, Sullivan was assigned to media support, working with Vic Ratner and Bob Walker on ABC News Radio.

For the STS-2 mission she flew in the back seat of a NASA Northrop T-38 Talon chase plane piloted by fellow astronaut Hoot Gibson, photographing the Space Shuttle tiles to verify that none had been damaged.

With fellow mission specialist David Leestma, she performed a 3.5-hour spacewalk in which they operated the ORS to show that a satellite could be refueled in orbit.

[21] During the eight-day mission, the crew also deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, conducted scientific observations of Earth with the OSTA-3 pallet (including the SIR-B radar, FILE, and MAPS experiments) and large format camera (LFC), and conducted several in-cabin experiments as well as activating eight "Getaway Special" canisters.

[22] The original intention was that the HST would be periodically retrieved by the Space Shuttle and returned to Earth for maintenance, although some components were designed for servicing in-orbit.

In 1984 NASA management decided this would be too dangerous and too costly, and that the HST would instead be maintained in-orbit by periodic servicing missions for up to fifteen years.

Working with fellow astronaut Bruce McCandless II and NASA and Lockheed Corporation engineers, she ensured that there would be a complete set of tools and procedures for as many HST maintenance missions as possible.

[26] She chose the wakeup music, including a contribution from Robin Williams, who provided a pastiche of his Good Morning, Vietnam radio greeting.

During this five-day mission, crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery deployed the HST, and conducted middeck experiments involving the study of protein crystal growth, polymer membrane processing, and the effects of weightlessness and magnetic fields on an ion arc.

[34] This was the first of several flights designed to study the composition of the mid-atmosphere and its variations over an eleven-year solar cycle, the regular period of energetic activity by the Sun.

[35] The mission also carried the Oscar statuette for the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award that film maker George Lucas received on March 30, the presentation being made by the STS-45 crew from Earth orbit.

[41] While she was still working on preparations for STS-45, Sullivan received a call from Sylvia Earle, the chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

With the permission of her STS-45 mission commander, Charles Bolden, Sullivan flew to Washington, DC, where she was interviewed by the Administrator of the NOAA, John A.

[44] Before she could be confirmed, President George H. W. Bush lost the 1992 United States presidential election and was succeeded by Bill Clinton, and the nomination was withdrawn.

[45] As chief scientist at NOAA, she oversaw a diverse portfolio which included ranging research into climate change, the use of satellites for oceanography, and marine biodiversity.

[49] President Obama nominated Sullivan to serve as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator on August 1, 2013, and she was confirmed by the Senate on March 6, 2014.

[51] Sullivan was named the 2017 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History, a competitive twelve-month fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum.

Titled "Looking at Earth: An Astronaut's Journey", Sullivan discussed her life of exploration and discovery, what it is like to fulfill her childhood dreams, and how NOAA's study of our planet helps us understand today's environmental challenges.