Johnson's posthumous memoir, 'My Remarkable Journey,' was co-written by Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore, two of her three daughters

In the book, she recounted how she went from a child prodigy in West Virginia to a NASA employee, detailing the struggles and fears she faced as a black woman  

Johnson is remembered as a trailblazer who helped America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology in NASA's early years

Her trajectory analysis was used to carry the first American into space in 1961 

In 1969, she calculated the precise trajectories that allowed the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon before Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk 

Johnson was one of the unsung heroes of the Space Race as her contributions came at a time when NASA was fraught with sexism and racism 

President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, and her story inspired the 2016 Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures 

Johnson died in February 2020 at age 101