Native Iowan heading to space again

Peggy Whitson, one of NASA's most experienced astronauts and an Iowa native, will be heading out to space with several other astronauts in 2016, according to the European Space Agency site.

Whitson, 55, of Beaconsfield, will fly on Expedition 50 and visit the International Space Station. She completed six-month tours on the space station in 2002 and 2007, totaling 377 days in space. During that time, she performed six spacewalks, totaling nearly 40 hours, the most of any female astronaut.

She graduated from Mount Ayr Community High School, and earned her bachelor's degree from Iowa Wesleyan College. Later, she also received a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University and worked at NASA as a scientist before being accepted into the astronaut program.

She served as the international space station commander for Expedition 16, which launched in 2007. Before that, she was a part of Expedition 5, which launched in 2002.