Linda Maxine Godwin (born July 2, 1952) is an American scientist and retired NASA astronaut.

Since retiring from NASA, she accepted the position of professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri.

[2] Her technical assignments have included working with flight software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL), and coordinating mission development activities for the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), deployable payloads, and Spacelab missions.

[9] GRO, at about 35,000 pounds (16,000 kg), was the heaviest payload deployed to date by the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (RMS).

Several middeck experiments and activities were conducted including test of elements of a heat pipe to study fluid transfer processed in microgravity environments (SHARE), a chemical processing apparatus to characterize the structure of biological materials (BIMDA), and an experiment to grow larger and more perfect protein crystals than can be grown on the ground (PCG II).

This multispectral capability of the radars provided information about the Earth's surface over a wide range of scales not discernible with previous single-frequency experiments.

Real-time crew observations of surface phenomena and climatic conditions augmented with over 14,000 photographs aided investigators in interpretation and calibration of the data.

The mission concluded with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, April 20, 1994, 16:55 UTC after orbiting the Earth 183 times in 269 hours, 29 minutes.

The Spacehab module carried in the Shuttle payload bay was utilized extensively for transfer and return stowage of logistics and science and also carried Biorack, a small multipurpose laboratory used during this mission for research of plant and animal cellular function.

The STS-76 mission concluded with a successful landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, March 31, 1996, 13:28:57 UTC after 145 orbits of the Earth, traveling 3,800,000 miles (6,100,000 km) in 221 hours and 15 minutes.

Godwin used the Shuttle's robotic arm to install the MPLM onto the Station Node, and participated in a spacewalk to wrap thermal blankets around ISS Solar Array Beta Gimbal Assemblies.