NASA astronaut Sunita Williams bids adieu to her space endeavours after 27 years

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has retired from her duties after 27 years with the space agency. Her retirement is effective December 27, NASA said in a statement. Williams is a former Navy pilot and joined NASA in 1998. "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 the statement. The Indian-American took her first trip to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on December 9, 2006. She performed her first extra-vehicular activity, or a spacewalk, during the same mission. However, her trip to the ISS in 2024 aboard the Boeing Starliner is what caught the most attention. She was only supposed to stay there for a week in June, but could only return in March 2025 after the Starliner faced difficulties.

Sunita Williams spacetime and spacewalks

Williams was stranded in space along with Butch Wilmore after they launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024,for its first crewed flight. However, the spacecraft experienced troubles, and they became Expedition 71/72 crewmembers. NASA contemplated several ways to return them, but nothing worked. The Starliner was finally brought back empty. The duo was stuck for nine months before they finally returned in March 2025 as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission. Williams' illustrious career includes 62 hours and 6 minutes of total spacewalk time, the most of any female astronaut, and fourth on NASA’s all-time list. She has logged 608 days in space over her three flights.

Sunita Williams joins NASA

Sunita Williams was chosen as an astronaut by NASA in June 1998. After completing her training, she worked in Moscow with the Russian Space Agency on the Russian contribution to the space station. She also lived underwater for nine days as a NEEMO2 crew member in the Aquarius habitat. She took her first trip to space as part of Expedition 14/15, from December 9, 2006, to June 22, 2007, as Flight Engineer. She set a record for female astronauts at the time for four spacewalks totalling 29 hours and 17 minutes.

In 2012, Williams launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, along with Russian Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. She spent four months on the space station and carried out scientific research. This time, she performed three spacewalks to replace a component that relays power from the space station’s solar arrays to its systems, and repair an ammonia leak on a station radiator.