NASA's legendary black female mathematician Katherine Johnson has passed away. She calculated and planned routes for the moon landing program and the Mercury program.

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On February 24, mathematician Katherine Johnson, who made significant contributions to completing complex calculations for NASA's space missions and advancing the use of computers, passed away at the age of 101.

She was one of the first African-American women at NASA and the first woman to have her name on a NASA job report.

She was born in 1918 and went to study mathematics at West Virginia State University at the age of 14. She graduated in 1940 and became the third doctoral student of African-American scholar William Schieffelin Claytor.

Soon after graduation, she became a teacher and started a family with three daughters.

It was not until 1953 that she submitted her resume and became an employee of the new department because her relatives told her that the United States had established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

Later, in 1958, NACA was renamed NASA, and from 1958 to 1986, she was an aeronautical technology expert at NASA.

In 1961, she calculated the flight trajectory of Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut;

In 1961, she calculated the launch window for Project Mercury and drew navigation charts in case of a malfunction.

She also participated in calculating the flight trajectory for the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969;

When Apollo 13 failed to land on the moon in 1970, she was also responsible for calculating and setting the route back to Earth.

It can be said that she was involved in the calculations, route planning and other complex tasks behind every important space mission in the United States. Later, the story of her and her female colleagues was made into a movie "Hidden Figures" in 2016.

In the same year, a new research building at NASA was named after her, becoming the "Katherine Johnson Computing Research Facility"; she was also named one of the BBC's 100 most influential women in the world.

Even Barbie's maker, Mattel, created a Barbie doll based on her, complete with a NASA badge.

Now, this history-making figure has left the world. NASA Administrator James Bridenstine said Katherine Johnson was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten.