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NASA has renamed a facility in West Virginia to honor Katherine Johnson, a famous mathematician and Native West Virginia.
NASA's Independent Verification and Validation Unit at Fairmont will now be known as Katherine Johnson's Independent Validation and Validation Unit.
"I'm excited to be honoring Katherine Johnson that way, as it's a real American image that has overtaken the incredible obstacles and inspired so many," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a release. "It's a remarkable tribute to the name of the installation that brings the heritage of the critical mission of calculations in her honor."
Johnson expressed the course of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 mission in 1961 and was asked to verify the results of the tracking computers for John Glenn's Friendship 7 mission.
The latter was a basic scene in the 2017 movie, "Hidden Figures," which chronicled Johnson's story along with fellow African mathematicians Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson. The trio broke the tribal obstacles to succeed in NASA and helped pave the way for the diversity of the organization.
President Donald Trump signed the Act on Congress to reorganize the facility in December.
President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson during a ceremony at the White House East Room on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
AP
In 2015, President Barack Obama assumed Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2017 Hampton Virginia's Langley Research Center at Hampton Virginia dedicated the new research facility Katherine Johnson Computational Research Facility to her honor.
Johnson celebrated her 100th birthday on August 26th.
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