Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, who embarked on a journey to space last year, which was originally supposed to last eight days, has been there for nine months now.
Williams, along with her fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore, went to the International Space Station aboard a Boeing Starliner on June 5, 2024. However, after the Starliner witnessed helium leaks and other technical glitches after its first crewed mission, the two astronauts got stuck at the ISS.
After a long wait, Williams’ return is now in sight as the SpaceX Crew-10 mission is set to launch on either March 12 or 13. Williams and her fellow crewmates at the ISS will head out on March 19 after a week-long handover procedure with the Crew-10.
A look at Sunita William’s time in space
Sunita Williams not just piloted the Boeing Starliner which took her and Butch Wilmore to the ISS, but also helped develop it. The project cost NASA 4.3 billion dollars
During her nine-month-long extended stay at the ISS, Sunita Williams has undertaken several projects and experiments. She has helped with cleaning and maintaining the ISS, which is the size of a football field, during her stay there, reported NDTV.
Along with maintenance and cleaning, she has also helped replace several old instruments on the space station.
Williams, along with her Boeing Starliner mate Butch Wilmore and one more astronaut, Nick Hague, has “completed more than 900 hours of research between more than 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations during their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory,” said NASA.
In order to stay fit to be able to navigate through the ISS, Williams also undertook extensive weight training aboard the space station. There were concerns about her health as well during her time at the ISS, however, she clarified later that she weighed the same as she did during her arrival
During her stay, Sunita Williams has also broke the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut by completing a total of 62 hours and nine minutes of spacewalk through all her missions. She spent 5 hours 26 minutes during her last spacewalk on January 30 and around six hours on January 16, the NDTV report said. During one of her earlier visits to the ISS, she also ran a marathon in space.
Sunita Williams also installed hardware for the Packed Bed Reactor Experiment: Water Recovery Series (PBRE-WRS) investigation. According to NASA, packed bed reactors are systems that “pack” materials such as pellets or beads inside a structure to increase contact between any liquids and gasses flowing through it. The experiment is determined to examine how gravity affects these systems aboard the International Space Station, and results could help scientists design better reactors for water recovery, thermal management, fuel cells, and other applications.
There is an ongoing examination of microgravity’s effects on biomanufacturing engineered bacteria and yeast on the International Space Station. Sunita Williams posed with bacteria and yeast samples for Rhodium Biomanufacturing 03, which is the part of the examination.