NEW YORK — Retired NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson’s “Reaching for the Moon,” an autobiography for middle graders, will be published next fall, Atheneum Books for Young Readers announced Thursday.

Johnson was one of the pioneering black women featured in the book and film “Hidden Figures,” in which she was played by Taraji P. Henson. Johnson and colleagues such as Dorothy Vaughan were vital in helping NASA successfully launch flights into space, and eventually to the moon.