A former Air Force Intelligence officer has pleaded guilty to lying to law enforcement when she claimed her then-estranged astronaut wife committed the first crime in space, according to authorities.
Summer Worden, 50, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 maximum fine for falsely alleging top NASA astronaut and then-spouse Anna McClain accessed Worden’s bank account from the International Space Station, the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Texas said in a press release.
Worden’s guilty plea Thursday put an end to a bitter legal feud with McClain.
Worden alleged McClain had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account in January 2019 while the pair was still married and McClain was deployed on a six-month mission to the International Space Station, prosecutors said.
The false claim sparked an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and NASA’s Inspector General, the New York Times reported.
Worden had actually opened the bank account in 2018, and both she and McClain accessed it until January 2019, when Worden changed the credentials, authorities said.
Investigators uncovered proof that Worden had granted her spouse access to her bank records from at least 2015, including her login credentials, prosecutors said.
Since the allegations first emerged, McClain has maintained that she had access to Worden’s accounts to manage the couple’s intertwined finances with her full knowledge, the Times reported.
The couple was in the midst of a brutal separation and parental dispute when Worden, a former Air Force Intelligence officer living in Kansas, waged the allegations, the outlet previously reported.
Their divorce was finalized in January 2020, KSDK reported.
McClain returned to the International Space Station in March 2025 as commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission. She was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2013.
Worden will be sentenced Feb. 12. She has been allowed to remain on bond pending that hearing, authorities said.
