Godwin, Linda Maxine (1952– )

US astronaut. Her four space shuttle flights include the Atlantis mission in March 1996 to dock with the Russian space station Mir. During the mission she performed a six-hour space walk, the first to be undertaken while a shuttle docked with an orbiting space station. She flew on the Endeavour in December 2001 to exchange resident crews on the International Space Station and to make a space walk to wrap thermal blankets around solar array gimbals. She has spent 38 days in space with 10 hours on two space walks. She went on to join the CapCom Branch of the Astronaut Office at the Johnson Space Center. Godwin joined NASA's Payload Operations Division in 1980 and was selected as an astronaut in 1985.