Sunita Williams Is Set To Celebrate Her Birthday In Space A Second Time As NASA Mission Gets Extended

With NASA deciding to bring back the faulty Boeing Starliner spacecraft uncrewed, astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore will be staying aboard the International Space Station until February 2025 and return with SpaceX Crew-9 members. NASA has downsized the SpaceX flight crew, dropping two astronauts, to accommodate Williams And Wilmore, the space agency said in a statement Friday.

The SpaceX rocket with a capacity to seat four persons will fly with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russia's Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov on September 24, and return in February 2025 with Williams and Wilmore on the two unoccupied seats.

Sunita Williams, who was part of the Boeing Crew Flight Test, was initially supposed to be in space for an eight-day mission. The extended stay means she will be celebrating her birthday in space. The 1965-born former US Navy pilot turns 59 on September 19.

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Sunita Williams's Birthday In Space

This is not the first time that NASA astronaut Sunita Williams will be spending her birthday aboard the space station.

The veteran astronaut has been to space twice before, for six months in 2006-07, and for four months in 2012, cumulatively spending a total of 322 days in space.

Williams's first mission was as part of Expedition 14/15. She launched on December 9, 2006, with the crew of STS-116 as Flight Engineer, and docked with the ISS on December 11, 2006. During her stay aboard the orbiting lab, she had created a world record for women with a total of four spacewalks spending 29 hours and 17 minutes outside the ISS. Williams returned on June 22, 2007, landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Her record was eventually broken by astronaut Peggy Whitson in 2008.  

Sunita Williams went to space again in 2012, as part of Expedition 32/33. She launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on July 14, 2012, along with Yuri Malenchenko from Roscosmos and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. They reached the space station on July 17, and returned on November 18, 2012, after 127 days.

Sunita Williams celebrated her 47th birthday during her 2012 stay aboard the ISS.

Born in Euclid, Ohio, to Dr Deepak and Bonnie Pandya, Sunita Williams went to Needham High School in Needham, Massachusetts. She is married to Michael J Williams, a federal marshal in Texas.

Fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore will also be celebrating his birthday in space this year. His birthday is on December 29. For Wilmore too, who has been to space twice earlier, this will be the second birthday aboard ISS.

His maiden mission was a short one lasting around 11 days in November 2009, but Wilmore logged 167 days between September 2014 and March 2015 during his next trip to the ISS. The 1962-born NASA astronaut had a cosmic birthday party on December 29, 2014, when he turned 52.    

Starliner Update

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, uncrewed, will depart from the space station and return to Earth at New Mexico's White Sands Space Harbor in September, NASA said in an update on Friday, adding that it will provide live coverage of the activities on NASA+, the NASA app, and its website.

According to the schedule shared by the space agency, the Starliner will autonomously undock from the ISS at 6:04 pm EDT on September 6 (3:34 am IST, September 7), if all goes as planned. The landing is expected at 12:03 am, September 7 (9:33 pm IST, September 8).

Ahead of the undocking, NASA will address the media on September 4.

There will be a news conference after the landing also, which will mark the conclusion of the flight test.