New Delhi: After a 27-year-long career and 608 days in space, Indian origin astronaut Sunita Williams has retired, NASA announced in the early hours of Wednesday.
“Suni Williams has been a trailblazer in human spaceflight, shaping the future of exploration through her leadership aboard the space station and paving the way for commercial missions to low Earth orbit,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement.
The retirement came into effect from 27 December last year.
Remarkable career
Clocking a remarkable career, Williams has completed three missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS), setting numerous human spaceflight records. Her latest trip hit the headlines after her seven-day mission turned into a nine-month-long stay at the ISS due to a technical issue with the spacecraft.
Williams, along with her crew, was launched to the space station in 2024 to test Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule. They finally managed to return to Earth in March last year.
According to NASA, Williams has logged 608 days in space, second on the list of cumulative time in space by a NASA astronaut. She ranks sixth on the list of longest single spaceflights by an American, tied with NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore. Wilmore was William’s crewmate on her last mission, with both logging 286 days during NASA’s Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Crew-9 missions.
Williams also completed nine spacewalks, totalling 62 hours and 6 minutes, ranking as the most spacewalk time by a woman and fourth-most on the all-time cumulative spacewalk duration list. She was also the first person to run a marathon in space.
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Born in Gujarat
Born to an Indian neuroanatomist from Gujarat and a Slovenian mother, the 60-year-old NASA astronaut took her first flight to space on 9 December 2006 aboard space shuttle Discovery with the crew of STS-116. She was a flight engineer on the Expedition 14/15.
Williams, who is currently in India, said that space has always been her “absolute favourite place to be.”
“It’s been an incredible honour to have served in the Astronaut Office and have had the opportunity to fly in space three times. I had an amazing 27-year career at NASA, and that is mainly because of all the wonderful love and support I’ve received from my colleagues,” she was quoted in the NASA statement.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)