Sunita Williams Joins Elite Club of NASA Astronauts with Most Time Spent in Space

Washington DC: Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams , who had been stranded in space for over nine months, has finally begun her homeward journey in SpaceX Dragon Freedom. As Sunita Williams returns from her fourth space mission, she has joined the elite club of NASA astronauts with the most time spent in space.

Sunita Williams Becomes NASA Astronaut with Second-Highest Number of Days in Space

A mission specialist for Crew-9, this was Sunita Williams' third visit to space, particularly, the International Space Station (ISS). She arrived at the ISS on June 6, 2024 and what was supposed to be a short one-week mission, turned out to be a nine-month mission due to technical issues in the spacecraft. 

Sunita Williams clocked 286 days on this mission along with three other astronauts, namely, Nick Hague, Aleksandr Gorbunov and Butch Wilmore. The Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams has scripted history with this mission, as she has clocked a total of 608 days in space with three missions, it is the second-highest time spent in space as a NASA astronaut. 

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Sunita Williams Joins NASA's Elite Club of NASA Scientists: A Look At Her Missions

As mentioned earlier, Sunita Williams has been to the International Space Station (ISS) thrice in her career as a NASA astronaut. Take a look at her previous missions…

Sunita Williams' First Time in Space: On December 9, 2006, Williams flew on the space shuttle Discovery for the STS-116 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), where she served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 14 and 15. During her time aboard the station, she completed four spacewalks, totaling over 29 hours outside the spacecraft, and spent more than 195 days in space—both of which set records for women in space. In addition to her space missions, she also participated in the Boston Marathon by running 42.2 km (26.2 miles) on the station's treadmill. Williams became the second American astronaut of Indian descent to travel to space, following Kalpana Chawla, who tragically lost her life in the Columbia disaster. Williams returned to Earth with the crew of STS-117, landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California on June 22, 2007.

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Sunita Williams' Second Space Mission: Sunita Williams returned to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 15, 2012, as part of the Soyuz TMA-05M mission, which was her second outing to space. She served as a flight engineer for Expedition 32, and on September 16, she took on the role of commander for Expedition 33. During this mission, she completed three additional spacewalks, totaling over 21 hours, maintaining her record for the most time spent on spacewalks, with more than 50 hours outside the ISS across both of her spaceflights. In addition to her spacewalks, Williams completed a triathlon while in orbit, using a treadmill, stationary bike, and weightlifting machine to simulate the swimming segment of the race. She returned to Earth on November 11, after spending nearly 127 days in space. Combined, her two missions in space totaled over 321 days.

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Sunita Williams at ISS for Third Time: Her third and latest mission, which she is returning from now, started on June 6, 2024. Williams was chosen as one of four astronauts to participate in the initial test flights of NASA's Commercial Crew program in 2015. This initiative aimed to develop two new private crewed spacecraft—SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner—designed to transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). In 2022, Williams was selected for the inaugural crewed test flight of the Starliner to the ISS, with Barry Wilmore as the commander and Williams serving as the pilot. The Starliner successfully docked with the ISS the day after launch, with the mission initially planned to last about one week. However, during the journey to the ISS, five thrusters malfunctioned, and helium leaks were detected in the propulsion system. As a result, NASA postponed Starliner's return to Earth until it was confirmed that the spacecraft could safely reenter. Williams and Wilmore then joined the ISS crew.

As the docking is complete and SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft is zooming towards the earth to bring back Crew-9 including Sunita Williams, prayers pour in from around the world, for the astronauts' safe homecoming after a long nine-month stay at the International Space Station (ISS).