Sunita Williams
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NASA
Astronaut
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Other names
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Sunita Pandya Krishna
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Nationality
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American Indian(From America and India)
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Status
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Active
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Born
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September 19, 1965 (age 47)
Euclid, Ohio, United States |
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Other occupation
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Test pilot
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Rank
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Captain, USN
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Time in space
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In space since July 1, 2012, 195
days on previous missions
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Selection
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1998
NASA Group
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Total EVAs
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6
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Total EVA time
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44 hours and 2 minutes
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Missions
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STS-116,
Expedition 14, Expedition 15,
STS-117,
Soyuz TMA-05M, Expedition 32
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Mission insignia
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Sunita Williams (born Sunita Pandya Krishna; September 19, 1965) is
an American astronaut and a United States Navy officer who holds the record for longest space flight
by a woman.
She was assigned to the International
Space Station as a member of Expedition 14
and Expedition 15. On July 1, 2012 she began serving as a flight engineer
on Expedition 32. In addition to holding the record for the longest space
flight time among female space travelers (195 days, not counting her ongoing
2012 mission),
she holds the record for number of spacewalks
for a female, and most spacewalk time for a female. Williams first broke the
two spacewalk records for women space travellers—most number of spacewalks, and
most spacewalk time—during Expedition 14/15 in 2007, but both records were
surpassed by Peggy Whitson during Expedition 16.
Williams regained both records during her sixth spacewalk, on September 5,
2012, and currently has 44 hours of spacewalk time.She became the commander of the International
Space Station on September 17, 2012, being only
the second woman to achieve the feat.
Sunita Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio
to Deepak Pandya and Bonnie Pandya, who reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Deepak Pandya is a well-known neuroanatomist.
Williams’ paternal ancestry originates in Gujarat in India, and that of her mother in Slovenia. Williams
is thus an American of Indian and Slovenian descent.
Williams attended Needham High School in Needham, Massachusetts, graduating in 1983. She went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical science
from the United
States Naval Academy in 1987, and a Master of Science
degree in Engineering Management from Florida
Institute of Technology in 1995.
Military
career
Williams received her commission as
an Ensign in the United States Navy from the United
States Naval Academy in May 1987. After a six-month
temporary assignment at the Naval Coastal System Command, she received her
designation as a Basic Diving Officer and then reported to the Naval Air
Training Command. She was designated a Naval Aviator
in July 1989. She then reported to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 3 (HC-3) for initial H-46 Sea Knight
training. Upon completion of this training, she was assigned to Helicopter
Combat Support Squadron 8 (HS-8) in Norfolk, Virginia,
and made overseas deployments to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf in support of Operation Desert Shield and Operation
Provide Comfort. In September 1992 she was the
Officer-in-Charge of an H-46 detachment sent to Miami, Florida
for Hurricane Andrew relief operations aboard the USS Sylvania. Williams was selected for the U.S. Naval
Test Pilot School and began the course in January
1993. After graduation in December 1993, she was assigned to the Rotary Wing
Aircraft Test Directorate as an H-46 Project Officer and V-22 chase
pilot in the T-2. While there she was also assigned as the squadron Safety
Officer and flew test flights in the SH-60B/F, UH-1, AH-1W, SH-2, VH-3, H-46, CH-53 and the H-57. In
December 1995, she went back to the Naval Test Pilot School as an instructor in
the Rotary Wing Department and the school's Safety Officer. There she flew the UH-60, OH-6 and the OH-58. From there she was assigned to the USS Saipan as the Aircraft Handler and the Assistant Air Boss.
Williams was deployed on the Saipan when she was selected for the
astronaut program.
She has logged over 3,000 flight
hours in more than 30 different aircraft.
NASA
career
Astronaut Sunita L. Williams,
Expedition 14 flight engineer, participates in the mission's third planned
session of extravehicular activity (EVA).
Selected by NASA in June 1998, Williams began her training at the Johnson Space Center in August 1998.
Her Astronaut Candidate training included orientation briefings and tours,
numerous scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in Space Shuttle
and International Space Station systems, physiological training and ground
school to prepare for T-38 flight training, as well as learning water and wilderness
survival techniques. She surpassed Kathryn Thornton,
who had three spacewalks, as the woman with the most spacewalks. Peggy Whitson
later surpassed her for woman with the most spacewalks. Following a period of
training and evaluation, Williams worked in Moscow with the Russian Space Agency on the Russian contribution to the ISS, and with the first
expedition crew sent to the ISS. Following the return of Expedition 1,
Williams worked within the Robotics branch on the ISS Robotic Arm and the related Special
Purpose Dexterous Manipulator.
She was a crew member on the NEEMO 2 mission, living underwater in the Aquarius habitat for nine days in May 2002.
As of 2008, Sunita Williams serves
as NASA's Deputy
Chief of the Astronaut Office.
She was assigned as a backup crew member for Expedition 30
to the International Space Station, is a crew member of Expedition 32,
which launched in July of 2012, and will stay on the ISS to be the Commander of
Expedition 33, which begins in September of 2012.
Like many astronauts, Williams is a
licensed amateur radio operator, having passed the technician class license exam
in 2001, and was issued the call sign KD5PLB by the Federal
Communications Commission on August
13, 2001.
She used one of the two amateur radio stations aboard the ISS when she talked
with school children.
Williams was selected to appear on
the The Colbert Report to announce that "Tranquility" was the winning
name for Node 3 of the
ISS.
Spaceflight
experience
STS-116
Williams was launched to the
International Space Station (ISS) with STS-116, aboard
the Space Shuttle Discovery, on December 9, 2006 to join the Expedition 14
crew. In April 2007, the Russian members of the crew rotated, changing to Expedition 15.
Among the personal items Williams
took with her to the ISS were a copy of the Bhagavad Gita,
a small figurine of the Hindu deity Ganesha and some samosas.
Expeditions
14 and 15
Williams became the first person to
run the Boston Marathon from the space station on April 16, 2007.
After launching aboard the Shuttle Discovery,
Williams arranged to donate her pony tail to Locks of Love.
The haircut by fellow astronaut Joan Higginbotham
occurred aboard the International Space Station and the ponytail was brought
back to earth with the STS-116 crew.
Williams performed her first extra-vehicular
activity on the eighth day of the STS-116
mission. On January 31, February 4, and February 9, 2007, she completed three
spacewalks from the ISS with Michael López-Alegría. During one of these walks a camera became untethered,
probably due to failure of the attaching device, and floated off to space,
before Williams could react.
Sunita L. Williams and Joan E. Higginbotham (foreground) (STS-116 mission
specialist) refer to a procedures checklist as they work the controls of the Canadarm2
in the International
Space Station's Destiny laboratory.
On the third spacewalk, Williams was
outside the station for 6 hours 40 minutes to complete three spacewalks in nine
days. She has logged 29 hours and 17 minutes in four spacewalks, eclipsing the
record held by Kathryn C. Thornton for most spacewalk time by a woman.On December 18, 2007, during the fourth spacewalk of Expedition 16,
Peggy Whitson surpassed Williams, with a cumulative EVA time of 32 hours,
36 minutes.
In early March 2007 she received a
tube of wasabi in a Progress spacecraft resupply mission in response to her request for more spicy
food. Opening the tube, which was packaged at one atmospheric pressure, the
gel-like paste was forced out in the lower pressure of the ISS. In the
free-fall environment, the spicy geyser was difficult to contain.
On April 16, 2007, she ran the first
marathon by an astronaut in orbit.
Williams finished the 2007 Boston Marathon
in four hours and 24 minutes .The other crew members reportedly cheered her on and gave her oranges during
the race. Williams' sister, Dina Pandya, and fellow astronaut Karen L. Nyberg
ran the marathon on Earth, and Williams received updates on their progress from
Mission Control. In 2008, Williams participated in the Boston Marathon again,
this time on Earth. That same year, on the game show Duel, a question was made from that event. The answers were:
London, New York, International Space Station, Paris. The most correct was the
ISS.
Following the decision on April 26,
2007 to bring Williams back to earth on the STS-117 mission
aboard Atlantis, she did not break the U.S. single spaceflight record that
was recently broken by former crewmember Commander Michael López-Alegría. However, she did break the record for longest single
spaceflight by a woman.
Williams served as a mission
specialist and returned to Earth on June 22, 2007 at the end of the STS-117
mission. Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down at Edwards Air Force Base in California at 3:49 p.m. EDT,
returning Williams home after a record 195-day stay in space.
Mission managers had to divert Atlantis
to Edwards in the Mojave Desert as poor weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
forced mission managers to skip three landing attempts there over the previous
24 hours. “Welcome back, congratulations on a great mission,” NASA mission
control told Williams and the six other members of the crew soon after the
Shuttle landed.
After the landing, 41-year-old
Sunita was chosen as "Person of the Week" by the American
Broadcasting Company. In December, the network noted,
she had her long hair cut so she could donate her locks to help those who lost
their hair while fighting an illness. Williams, a record-setting astronaut who
was aboard the International Space Station for six months in 2006, is headed
once again to space in July. She is scheduled to take off on July 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Soyuz
TMA-05M
Williams exercises on COLBERT during
ISS Expedition 32.
Williams is currently in space as
part of Expedition 32/33.
Her Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-05M
docked with the ISS for a four-month stay at the orbiting outpost on 17 July
2012.The docking of the Soyuz occurred at 4:51 GMT as the ISS flew over Kazakhstan
at an altitude of 252 miles. The hatchway between the Soyuz spacecraft and the
ISS was opened at 7:23 GMT and Williams floated into the ISS to begin her
duties as a member of the Expedition 32 crew. She was accompanied on the Soyuz
TMA-05M spacecraft by Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) astronaut Aki Hoshide and Russian cosmonaut
Yuri Malenchenko. Williams will serve as commander of the ISS during
Expedition 33, succeeding Gennady Padalka.
Spacewalks
Williams has participated in six
spacewalks during her astronaut career, and her total time spent on spacewalks
is 44 hours and 2 minutes.
On August 30, 2012, Williams and
JAXA astronaut Hoshide ventured outside of the ISS to conduct US EVA-18. They
will remove and replace the failing Main Bus Switching Unit-1 (MBSU-1), and
install a thermal cover onto Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (PMA-2).[25]
2007
visit to India
In September 2007, Williams visited India. She went to the Sabarmati Ashram,
the ashram set up by
Mahatma Gandhi in 1915, and her ancestral village Jhulasan in Gujarat. She was
awarded the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vishwa Pratibha Award by the World Gujarati Society,[26]
the first person of Indian descent who was not an Indian citizen to be presented the award. On
October 4, 2007, Williams spoke at the American Embassy School, and then met Manmohan Singh,
the Prime Minister of India
Sunita Williams is the first person
ever in space history who was interviewed directly from the the International
Space Station, 250 miles above the Earth, through YouTube Space Lab.
Personal
life
Williams is married to Michael J.
Williams, a Federal
police officer in Oregon. The two have been married for more than 20 years, and both
flew helicopters
in the early days of their careers. She has a pet Jack Russell Terrier named Gorby who was featured with her on the "Dog Whisperer"
television show on the National
Geographic Channel on November 12, 2010.
Her recreational interests include running, swimming, biking, triathlons, windsurfing, snowboarding and bow hunting.
She is an avid Boston Red Sox fan.
Sunita Williams has expressed a
desire to adopt a girl from Ahmedabad.
Organizations
- Society
of Experimental Test Pilots
- Society of Flight Test Engineers
- American Helicopter Association
Honours
and awards
This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the Polish Wikipedia.
- Navy
Commendation Medal,
twice
- Navy
and Marine Corps Achievement Medal
- Humanitarian
Service Medal
- Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration" (Russia, 2011) - for outstanding contribution to the
development of international cooperation in manned space flight
- Padma Bhushan
