American astronaut and former U.S. Navy officer Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams (Pandya; born September 19, 1965) holds the records for the most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and the longest spacewalk duration for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes).
Williams served on Expeditions 14 and 15 while stationed at the International Space Station. She was the leader of Expedition 33 after serving as a flight engineer on Expedition 32 in 2012. In 2024, she returned to the ISS on the Boeing Crew Flight Test, the first crewed mission of the Boeing Starliner; her return to Earth has been delayed until February 2025.
Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore are therefore turning ahead to perform a variety of scientific research and maintenance duties on board the International Space Station from August 2024 to February 2025. In August 1998, Williams started training to become an astronaut at the Johnson Space Center.
CAREER IN NASA
STS-116
Williams joined the Expedition 14 crew on December 9, 2006, when he was launched onboard Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS) with STS-116. The Russian crew members switched to Expedition 15 in April of 2007.
EXPEDITIONS 14 AND 15
Williams made arrangements to donate her ponytail to Locks of Love following the event. On the International Space Station, Joan Higginbotham, a fellow astronaut, chopped her hair, which the STS-116 crew transported down to Earth. It was on the eighth day of the STS-116 mission that Williams did her first extra-vehicular activity.
She and Michael López-Alegría performed three spacewalks from the ISS on January 31, February 4, and February 9, 2007. Before Williams could respond, a camera during one of these trips flew off into space after becoming untethered—likely due to a malfunctioning attachment mechanism.
Williams completed three spacewalks in nine days, spending six hours and forty minutes outside the station on the third spacewalk. She broke Kathryn C. Thornton's record for the longest spacewalk by a woman in 2007 with four spacewalks totaling 29 hours and 17 minutes.
With a total EVA time of 32 hours and 36 minutes, Peggy Whitson overtook Williams on December 18, 2007, during Expedition 16's fourth spacewalk. When she asked for more spicy food on a Progress spacecraft resupply trip in early March 2007, she was given a tube of wasabi.
The paste was driven out under the lower pressure of the ISS when she opened the tube, which was packed at one-atmosphere pressure. It was hard to control the spicy geyser in the free-fall setting.
NASA decided to return Williams to Earth on the STS-117 mission onboard Atlantis on April 26, 2007. She broke the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, although she did not break the U.S. single spaceflight record, which was previously set by López-Alegría. After the STS-117 mission on June 22, 2007, Williams, a mission specialist, returned to Earth.
Mission managers had to postpone three landing attempts at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral over a day due to bad weather. They ultimately diverted Atlantis to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where the shuttle touched down at 3:49 p.m. EDT, returning Williams home after a 192-day stay in space.
MARATHON IN SPACE
She completed the first marathon ever run by a person in space on April 16, 2007. Williams finished the 2007 Boston Marathon in 4 hours and 24 minutes after being registered as an entrant. Throughout the race, she received oranges and encouragement from the other crew members. Mission Control provided Williams with details on the marathon that was run on Earth by fellow astronaut Karen L. Nyberg and his sister Dina Pandya. Williams ran the Boston Marathon once more in 2008.
EXPEDITIONS 32 AND 33
On July 15, 2012, Williams was launched as a member of Expedition 32/33 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On July 17, 2012, her Russian spacecraft, Soyuz TMA-05M, docked with the ISS for a four-month orbital mission. As the ISS passed over Kazakhstan at a height of 252 miles, the Soyuz spacecraft docked at 4:51 GMT. At 7:23 GMT, the hatchway connecting the ISS and the Soyuz spacecraft was opened, and Williams floated into the ISS to start her work as an Expedition 32 crew member.
She was joined aboard the Soyuz spacecraft by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and astronaut Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). During her time aboard ISS Expedition 33, Williams succeeded Gennady Padalka as ISS commander. She became the second woman to hold the position of captain of the International Space Station on September 17, 2012.
The Nautica Malibu Triathlon, which took place in Southern California in September 2012, also made her the first person to complete a triathlon in space. She utilized the stationary bike and treadmill provided by the International Space Station, and for the swimming phase of the event, she performed resistance training and weightlifting using the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED), which simulates swimming in microgravity. Williams finished with a self-reported time of one hour, forty-eight minutes, and thirty-three seconds after swimming half a mile (0.8 km), biking eighteen miles (29 km), and running four miles (6.4 km). On November 19, 2012, she and her fellow astronauts Akihiko Hoshide and Yuri Malenchenko returned to Earth. A procedural delay led the capsule to land in the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, some 35 kilometers (22 mi) from the planned touchdown site.
COMMERCIAL CREW PROGRAM
Williams was named one of the first astronauts for U.S. commercial spaceflights by NASA in July 2015. Then, along with other selected astronauts, she started training in commercial crew vehicles operated by SpaceX and Boeing. She was assigned to the Boeing CST-100 Starliner's first operational mission flight (Starliner-1) to the International Space Station in August 2018. NASA announced on April 18, 2022, that it was still unsure of whether the group of Starliner astronauts—Barry Wilmore, Michael Fincke, and Williams—would fly on the first operational Starliner trip or the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission.
NASA confirmed on June 16, 2022, that Wilmore and Williams will be the only two people on the CFT mission. Williams was the pilot of the Starliner when it launched into orbit on June 5, 2024, making her the first female pilot to go on an orbital spacecraft flight test.
Due to mechanical difficulties with the Boeing Starliner's service module, she and colleague astronaut Barry Wilmore are still "stuck" on the ISS as of August 17, 2024. The first itinerary called for an eight-day journey. Sunita did not rank among the top 50 time-in-space statistics before this trip. She broke into the top 30 on August 24, 2024, and when she returns in February 2025, she should rank in the top 12 in terms of time-in-space duration. For the second time in her career, Williams assumed command of the ISS in September 2024, a position she will maintain until her return in February 2025.
SPACEWALK
Sunita Williams was fifth on the list of most experienced spacewalkers as of August 2012, having completed seven spacewalks totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes. Williams and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide conducted US EVA-18 on August 30, 2012, outside the ISS. They fitted a thermal cover on Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (PMA-2) and took out and replaced the malfunctioning Main Bus Switching Unit-1 (MBSU-1).