NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who stayed in space for 9 months after spacecraft problem, retires
NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who remained in space for an extended nine-month visit because of problems with an experimental capsule, has retired after 27 years, NASA announced Tuesday.
Williams retired on Dec. 27, NASA said in a statement. Williams, a former Navy pilot, joined NASA in 1988.
“Suni Williams was a pioneer of 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 release.
Williams has flown three missions to the International Space Station, the first of which was in 2006 when she was carried aboard the space shuttle Discovery, NASA said.
NASA astronaut Suni Williams. (NASA)
(NASA)
But this is the most recent, in 2024, in which the planned week-long stay stretched from June to March 2025 due to concerns about Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which was on a test mission.
Starliner launched on June 5, 2024, taking Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station on its first crewed flight. But there were problems with the capsule’s thrusters during the docking process and finally, in September, NASA decided to return the capsule without anyone on board.
Williams and Wilmore spent 286 days aboard the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Dragon capsule was then sent to bring the two men, along with two other astronauts who were completing a six-month mission, back to Earth. The Dragon capsule left the space station on March 18 and crashed into the ocean off the coast of Florida.
William and Butch Wilmore at the Cape Canaveral space station, Florida, before boarding the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for launch crew flight testing on June 5, 2024. (Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP – Getty Images file)
(Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo)
During his career, Williams spent 608 days in space, which is the second-most cumulative time in space in NASA history, the space agency said.
She also recorded the longest spacewalk duration among all female astronauts at 62 hours and 6 minutes, which is the fourth longest duration among all NASA astronauts, according to the release.
Williams and Wilmore said they enjoyed their extended life and work at the orbiting outpost, even though it was longer than expected.
“The plan turned out a lot different than we anticipated, but because we do human spaceflight, we prepare for many contingencies,” Wilmore said in late March, after their return to Earth. “It’s a winding road. You never know where it’s going to lead.”
Williams works on the Reversible Figures (RFx) experiment on the International Space Station in July 2012. (NASA)
(NASA)
Williams said his recovery on Earth after a longer-than-expected space stay was made easier by his previous spaceflights.
“Even though it was longer than any flight either of us had taken before, I think my body remembers it,” she told NBC News in an interview alongside Wilmore in June.
Williams called his career and the opportunities to serve at NASA an “incredible honor.”
“Anyone who knows me knows that space is my favorite place,” she said in a NASA release.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
