Let's know more about Sunita Williams on her 57 Birthday....

Sunita Williams, an American Astronaut and United States Navy Officer, who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time for a woman (50 hours, 40 minutes).

In 1983, Williams entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. She was made an ensign in 1987 and reported for aviator training at the Naval Aviation Training Command.

In 1989, she began combat helicopter training. She flew in helicopter support squadrons during the preparations for the Persian Gulf War and the establishment of no-fly zones over Kurdish areas of Iraq, as well as in relief missions during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 in Miami.

In 1993, she became a naval test pilot, and later, a test pilot instructor, flying more than 30 different aircraft and logging more than 2,770 flight hours.

Williams completed an M.S. in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne in 1995, and she entered astronaut training in 1998.

She traveled to Moscow, where she received training in robotics and other ISS operational technologies while working with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) and with crews preparing for expeditions to the ISS.

On December 9, 2006, Williams flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery on the STS-116 mission to the ISS, where she was a flight engineer for Expeditions 14 and 15.

During her stay at the space station, she made four space walks, totaling more than 29 hours outside the spacecraft, and spent a total of more than 195 days in space, both of which were records for women in space.

She held the latter record until 2015, when Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti spent more than 199 days in space.

She also participated in the Boston Marathon by running 42.2 km (26.2 miles) on the station’s treadmill.

She was the second American astronaut of Indian heritage to go into space, after Kalpana Chawla.

She made three more space walks, totaling more than 21 hours, retaining her space walk record with a total time outside the ISS between her two flights of more than 50 hours.

She also completed a triathlon in orbit by using a treadmill, a stationary bicycle, and a weightlifting machine to simulate the swimming portion of the race.

Her two spaceflights combined lasted more than 321 days, ranking her second, after American astronaut Peggy Whitson, for the most time spent in space by a woman.

She was chosen in 2022 for the first crewed test Starliner flight to the ISS, which was scheduled for 2023.

Published on: Sunday, September 18, 2022, 08:53 PM IST