Summer Heather Worden pleaded guilty on November 13 to lying to federal investigators after falsely accusing her former spouse, NASA astronaut Anne McClain, of committing a crime aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Worden claimed in 2019 that McClain had accessed her bank account without permission while on a long-duration ISS mission.
A NASA Office of Inspector General investigation later determined that Worden had opened the account herself in 2018, had shared login credentials with McClain for years, and had continued granting access until early 2019. The Justice Department concluded that the allegations were knowingly false.
Worden faces up to five years in federal prison and a possible US$250,000 fine when she is sentenced in February 2026. McClain, who denied the claims at the time, returned to the ISS in 2025 for a new mission that included a spacewalk.
Such a case begs the question as to what would happen to astronauts should they commit crimes in space. Indeed, how would they be prosecuted? And who has jurisdiction over justice? Click on to find out.