NASA names DC HQ for ‘Hidden Figures’ engineer

NASA on Friday is named its Washington headquarters after Mary W. Jackson, the space agency's first African American female engineer whose story was portrayed in the popular film "Hidden Figures."

Jackson started her NASA career in 1951 as part of a segregated unit of female mathematicians at what is now Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The women did calculations during the early pre-computer days of the U.S. space program.

Their story was chronicled in a book and the 2016 film.

Jackson was later promoted to engineer and retired from NASA in 1985. She died in 2005 at age 83.