Ochoa became the first Hispanic woman to go to space when she served on a nine-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle "Discovery" in 1993. The purpose of the Shuttle mission was to study the Earth's ozone layer. A veteran of four space flights, Ochoa has logged nearly 1000 hours in space. She was a mission specialist on STS-56 (1993), was payload commander on STS-66, and was mission specialist and flight engineer on STS-96 and STS-110 in 2002. Ochoa was in Mission Control during the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster and was one of the first personnel informed of television coverage showing "Columbia"s disintegration.