and first mother in space, when she was a mission specialist aboard the Discovery space shuttle flight of November 1984 that deployed three communications satellites. Fisher became chief of the Space Station Branch of NASA's Astronaut Office. After an extended leave of absence from 1988 to 1996 to raise her family, she first returned to the Astronaut Office and was assigned to the Operations Planning Branch to work on the procedures and training issues in support of the International Space Station. Among other NASA roles, Fisher served as a management astronaut, working jointly for the Capsule Communicator and Exploration branches of NASA, worked as a station CAPCOM, and worked on display development for the Orion project. She was selected as an astronaut in 1978 and retired in April 2017.