Katherine Johnson, the American mathematician whose calculations of rocket trajectories were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights and who is celebrated in the movie "Hidden Figures", has died at the age of 101. In 2017, the "Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility" was named and dedicated in her honor. During the same year, The Washington Post described her as "the most high-profile of the computers". Here, "computers" refers to the many supremely capable, mostly female NASA mathematicians who performed complex manual calculation for the agency in the pursuit of space flight.

Following her death, NASA described Katherine Johnson as an "American hero" whose "pioneering legacy will never be forgotten".