Sunita Williams Sunita Lyn "Suni" Williams née Pandya is
a former American astronaut and a United States Navy officer. She holds the records for longest
single space flight by a woman , total spacewalks by a woman , and most spacewalk time for a
woman . Williams was assigned to the International
Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and Expedition 15. In 2012, she served as
a flight engineer on Expedition 32 and then commander of Expedition 33.
Ancestry and early life Sunita Williams was born in Euclid, Ohio,
to Indian American neuroanatomist Deepak Pandya and Slovene American Ursuline Bonnie Pandya
(née Zalokar), who have three children and reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Sunita
is the youngest of three siblings, her brother Jay Thomas is four years older and her sister
Dina Anna is three years older. Williams’ paternal ancestry is from Jhulasan,
Mehsana district in Gujarat, India, while her maternal great grandmother Mary Bohinc
(originally Marija Bohinjec), born 5 September 1890 in Leše, immigrated to America as an
eleven year old girl with her mother, an 1891 Slovene emigrant Ursula Bohinc née Strajhar.
Williams graduated from Needham High School in Needham, Massachusetts, in 1983. She received
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 was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy in May 1987. After a six-month
temporary assignment at the Naval Coastal System Command, she was designated a Basic
Diving Officer. She next reported to the Naval Air Training Command, where she was designated
a Naval Aviator in July 1989. She received initial H-46 Sea Knight training in Helicopter
Combat Support Squadron 3 (HC-3), and was then assigned to Helicopter Combat Support
Squadron 8 (HC-8) in Norfolk, Virginia, with which she made overseas deployments to the
Mediterranean, Red Sea and the Persian Gulf for 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.
In January 1993, Williams began training at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. She graduated
in December, and was assigned to the Rotary Wing Aircraft Test Directorate as an H-46
Project Officer and V-22 chase pilot in the T-2. Later, she was 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 as the school's Safety Officer. There she flew the UH-60,
OH-6, and the OH-58. She then went to the USS Saipan as the Aircraft Handler and the
Assistant Air Boss. Williams was deployed on the Saipan in June 1998 when she was selected
by NASA for the astronaut program. She has logged more than 3,000 flight hours
in more than 30 aircraft types. NASA career
Williams began her Astronaut Candidate training at the Johnson Space Center in August 1998.
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 After launching aboard the Shuttle Discovery,
Williams arranged to donate her pony tail to Locks of Love. Fellow astronaut Joan Higginbotham
cut her hair aboard the International Space Station and the ponytail was brought back
to Earth by 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 because the attaching device failed,
and floated off to space before Williams could react.
On the third spacewalk, Williams was outside the station for 6 hours and 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. When she opened 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 a person in orbit. Williams finished the
2007 Boston Marathon in four hours and 24 minutes. The other crew members 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.
On April 26, 2007, NASA decided 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, but 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. Poor weather at
the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral forced mission managers to skip three landing
attempts there over previous 24 hours. They then 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 record 192-day stay in space. Expeditions 32 and 33
Williams launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 15, 2012 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 served as commander of the ISS during her stay onboard ISS Expedition
33, succeeding Gennady Padalka. She became the commander of the International Space Station
on September 17, 2012, being only the second woman to achieve the feat. Also in September
2012, she became the first person to do a triathlon in space, which coincided with the
Nautica Malibu Triathlon held in Southern California on Earth. She used the International
Space Station's own treadmill and stationary bike, and for the swimming portion of the
race, she used the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) to do weightlifting and resistance
exercises that approximate swimming in microgravity. After "swimming" half a mile (0.8 km), biking
18 miles (29 km), and running 4 miles (6.4 km), Williams finished with a time of one hour,
48 minutes and 33 seconds, as she reported. She returned to earth with fellow astronauts
Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide on 19 November 2012, touching down
in the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. Helicopters joined the search-and-recovery crew to assist
them, as their capsule parachuted down some 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the planned touchdown
site due to a procedural delay. Spacewalks
As of November 2012, Williams has made seven spacewalks totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes,
putting Williams in No. 5 on the list of most experienced spacewalkers.
On August 30, 2012, Williams and JAXA astronaut Hoshide ventured outside the ISS to conduct
US EVA-18. They removed and replaced the failing Main Bus Switching Unit-1 (MBSU-1), and installed
a thermal cover onto Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 (PMA-2).
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, 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.
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. 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 Honors and awards
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
Honorary Doctorate by Gujarat Technological University in 2013
Golden Order for Merits (Slovenia, 2013) - for her contribution to the promotion of natural
and technical sciences, and especially their promotion among younger generations of Slovenes