This badass woman is about to set an astronaut record

When NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson flies to space on Thursday, she will become the oldest woman ever in space.

Whitson, who has flown to space twice previously, will launch to the International Space Station at 3:20 p.m. ET from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

At 56 years old, Whitson beats out astronaut Barbara Morgan, who was 55 when she flew to orbit in 2007, according to the Associated Press.

Whitson will celebrate her 57th birthday in space, and she will command the Space Station during her six-month-stay in orbit, becoming the first woman to take command of the orbiting outpost twice.

During her time on the station, Whitson will also extend her record as the woman with the most cumulative time spent in space. So far, she has accrued 377 days in space.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Whitson is a fair bit younger than the oldest male NASA astronaut to fly in space. John Glenn holds that title, after his spaceflight at age 77 in 1998.

Whitson will fly to space aboard a Russian-build Soyuz spacecraft alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

You can watch their launch in the window below starting at 2:30 p.m. ET.

(You can also watch the launch directly through NASA TV.)

Whitson is a relatively active Twitter user and has been keeping her followers up to date on training and even the mundane aspects of life before launch.

Earlier this week, Whitson posted a photo of herself in a barber's chair getting a haircut.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Whitson was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and trained for two years before becoming a full-fledged astronaut, according to NASA.

Since then, Whitson has served in a variety of roles.

From 2009 to 2012, she was the first female head of NASA's Astronaut Corps.