First Maine woman to travel into space

PORTLAND, Maine – A Maine astronaut will be the first woman and third person from the state to travel into space.

Jessica Meir, of Caribou, will take her first trip to the International Space Station launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, according to NASA.

Meir is scheduled to launch with a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. She’ll return in 2020.

Meir, a flight engineer and co-pilot of the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, says she wanted to be an astronaut since she was 5 and hopes to get the opportunity to go on a spacewalk.

The Portland Press Herald reports Meir will be working on experiments ranging from studying gravity’s effect on the human body to protein crystal growth to radiations effect on humans.