Woodland Park native piloting next NASA rocket to International Space Station
WOODLAND PARK, Colo. (KRDO) - A woman from Woodland Park will realize her childhood dream of piloting a space shuttle on Wednesday as she leads Rotation Crew-10 to the International Space Station.
Nichole Ayers will pilot the next NASA and SpaceX joint mission. It's scheduled to launch on March 12 at 5:48 MT from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch comes one year and one week since Ayers graduated from the NASA Astronaut Program with 10 other candidates. She spoke with KRDO13 after her graduation.
"Excited is such an understatement. I wish we had a better word in the English language for excited," Ayers said after graduating in March 2024. "My goal from a very young age, I wanted to fly the space shuttle, and I was kind of a little serious little kid. So, I set my goals, and set my dreams and just started working hard towards it."
At the time of Ayers interview with KRDO13 in 2024, she was also the only woman to fly an F-22 Raptor fighter jet at the front of the formation in combat.
From space camp as a kid to piloting a NASA rocket into space, Ayers will soon accomplish her dream.
