SD City College alumna Katya Echazarreta becomes first Mexico-born woman in space

San Diego Metropolis Faculty alumna Katya Echazarreta grew to become the primary Mexico-born lady to journey into area early Saturday, hovering into the ether aboard a spaceship known as New Shepard.

The 26-year-old electrical engineer and 5 different passengers launched from a pad in West Texas at 6:26 a.m. PDT and reached the sting of area about 5 minutes later, the place they briefly loved zero gravity whereas looking of huge home windows.

The sub-orbital flight ended roughly 5 minutes later when the white, thimble-shaped capsule softly parachuted to the bottom, kicking up a big cloud of orange mud.

Echazarreta, who carried the flag of Mexico together with her on the journey, emerged from the spacecraft a short while later, joyously slapping the hand of a restoration staff member as she stepped onto the desert ground close to Van Horn, Texas.

Her fellow passengers included Victor Vescovo, Jaison Robinson, Victor Correa Hespanha, Hamish Harding and Evan Dick.

The crew was not instantly obtainable for interviews. However Echazarreta, who beforehand labored as a flight engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talked concerning the mission throughout a message broadcast by the Blue Origin area tourism firm, which staged the mission.

“I’m actually obsessed with my neighborhood and actually obsessed with ladies, notably ladies from Latin America,” she stated. “To me, making it’s not sufficient. My objective with the journey I’m about to go on on this flight is to take everybody with me.

“If there’s one thing that you just really, really wish to do, it’s essential to not let these voices round you telling you that you just’re not adequate, that you just’re unfit of it, that you just’re not going to make it. If I had listened to no less than one among them then I wouldn’t be right here about to go to area.”

Echazarreta was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and later moved to San Diego, the place she attended San Diego Metropolis Faculty. She went on to earn a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering and is at the moment engaged on a grasp’s diploma in engineering at Johns Hopkins College in Baltimore.

She is also a extremely well-liked STEM educator whose work principally seems on social media.