American astronaut Sunita Williams announced her retirement from NASA after three missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the last of which left her stranded for nine months in the orbital laboratory due to a failure in the capsule that was supposed to bring her back to Earth. “Suni Williams has been a pioneer in human spaceflight, forging the future of exploration with her leadership aboard the space station and paving the way for commercial missions to low Earth orbit,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. During her 27-year career at the U.S. space agency, Williams spent 608 days in space, a milestone surpassed only by NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson with 695 days. Additionally, the 60-year-old Williams is the woman with the most time spent on spacewalks, with a record of 62 hours and 6 minutes spread over nine extravehicular activities. The astronaut, who first left Earth's surface in 2006, accumulated the most days in space during her last mission, which began in June 2024. On that mission, she was part of the test flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule to the space station alongside NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore. Although the mission was expected to last a few days, it ended up extending for nine months due to a problem with the capsule that was to transport both of them back to Earth. The 286 days Williams and Wilmore spent together in space place them sixth on the list of the longest spaceflights. Wilmore retired from NASA last summer. “Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement and thank you for your service to NASA and our nation,” Isaacman concluded in the statement.
