Dunbar, Bonnie Jeanne (1949– )

US astronaut and, from 1995, assistant director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC). Her space shuttle flights include the first mission to dock with the Russian space station Mir (on Columbia in June 1992), and the eighth shuttle-Mir docking (on Endeavour in January 1998). Dunbar was a payload officer and flight controller with the JSC when she was selected as an astronaut in 1981.