Watkins will serve as a mission specialist on the upcoming SpaceX Crew-4 launch to the International Space Station. The journey will mark the first time the astronaut has traveled to space.
, the trips that ISS crew members take outside the station to perform important repairs and installations.will be her first operation off the surface of our planet.
At Ames, she conducted research into Martian soil designed to assist the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which landed on the Martian surface on May 25, 2008, and ceased operations in November of the same year. Watkins has also served on various analog missions for the agency, which are field tests conducted on Earth in locations picked for their physical resemblance to off-world locales like Mars.