Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams shares experience of spacewalking outside ISS

NASA astronaut of Indian origin Sunita Williams is a veteran of two space missions and has participated in conducting spacewalks outside the International Space Station (ISS). In an interview with environmental studies student Adrien Prouty, Williams shared her experience on what it feels like stepping out into space for the first time and revealed the challenges one faces in the process. 

Part of ‘Down to Earth: Conversations’, the short clip was shared by the official Twitter handle of the International Space Station.

Williams reveals ‘fascinating things’ about doing a spacewalk

When asked about what would be the most surprising thing for most people during a spacewalk, Williams said that “it is every sensation that you have as a human being wrapped up in six hours”. “It’s like this is something that you have professionally looked forward to for a long time in practice. You know it’s not going to be easy”, she added.

Having spent a total of 322 days in space on two missions, Williams is currently working with Boeing for the upcoming Starliner launch later this year. Further explaining the conditions one would face during a spacewalk, she said that experiencing temperature fluctuations is very common. Since the space station completes one orbit around the Earth in 90 minutes, astronauts feel extremely hot for 45 minutes when they face the sunlight and equally cold when the sun is on the other side. 

"It's a little shocking and somewhat a little scary", Williams said and revealed how her first spacewalking experience was. "On my first spacewalk, we were hanging out at the solar array and we happened to fly over Canada and the northern lights were below you. That was compelling". She said that the first experience "left an impact" on her because "there is so much out there in space that's going on that we have absolutely no control of".

More about Sunita Williams

Born to Dr. Deepak and Bonnie Pandya in Massachusetts, Williams was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1998. She is currently preparing for her third long-duration mission to the space station with Boeing in its Starliner capsule. "Williams and her crewmates are working closely with Boeing to develop their new spacecraft systems, which will provide roundtrip crew transportation services to the International Space Station and, along with SpaceX’s CrewDragon, return the ability to launch humans into space from United States soil", NASA said in a statement.