Millie Hughes-Fulford, a trailblazing astronaut and scientist who became the first female payload specialist to fly in space for NASA, died following a yearslong battle with cancer, her family said. She was 75.

Hughes-Fulford was selected by NASA for its astronaut program in 1983 and five years later, in June 1991, spent nine days in orbit on the shuttle Columbia, conducting experiments on the effect of space travel on humans as part of the agency's first mission dedicated to biomedical studies, STS-40. She and her crew mates circled the Earth 146 times.

The research shaped the rest of her career and upon her return she established the Hughes-Fulford Laboratory at the San Francisco VA Healthcare System, which worked to understand the mechanisms that regulate cell growth in mammals.

"She came back to her world as a scientist and carried this experience of having flown in space and that became a unique filter through which she passed all of her scientific work," said Dr. Mike Barratt, a NASA flight surgeon assigned to Columbia, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The laboratory was active right up through Hughes-Fulford's own seven-year battle with lymphoma. She died Feb. 2, at her San Francisco home. Her death was confirmed by her granddaughter, Kira Herzog of Mill Valle.

A spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates was set to swing into orbit around Mars in the Arab world's first interplanetary mission Tuesday, the first of three robotic explorers arriving at the red planet over the next week and a half.

The orbiter, called Amal, Arabic for Hope, traveled 300 million miles in nearly seven months to get to Mars with the goal of mapping its atmosphere throughout each season.

A combination orbiter and lander from China is close behind, scheduled to reach the planet on Wednesday. It will circle Mars until the rover separates and attempts to land on the surface in May to look for signs of ancient life.

A rover from the U.S.