In 2024, Katherine Bennell-Pegg became the first qualified astronaut under the Australian flag. She is also the first woman Australian astronaut and was the first international candidate to undertake astronaut training with the European Space Agency in Germany.

Bennell-Pegg is a reservist Group Captain in the Royal Australian Air Force and was previously the Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency. She is a prominent ambassador for STEM and the national space sector and is passionate about inspiring young people about the wonders of space.

She has 15 years of global space engineering experience across a range of projects – from human spaceflight missions to Earth observation – for organisations including Airbus, the European Space Agency and NASA.