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Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams speaks during a session at American Center, in New Delhi on Tuesday. (ANI Video Grab)
Veteran NASA astronaut Sunita Williams — one of the two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station (ISS) — has retired, news agency AP reported.
The space agency announced the news on Tuesday, stating her retirement took effect at the end of December last year.
Williams spent over eight months aboard the ISS and returned to the Earth in March 2025 aboard the SpaceX, along with her crewmate, Butch Wilmore.
Wilmore had left NASA last summer, according to the report.
The pair was launched to the space station in 2024, the first people to fly Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule. Their mission, meant to last for a week, stretched to over nine months because of Starliner trouble.
60-year-old Williams, a former Navy captain, spent more than 27 years at NASA, logging 608 days in space over three station missions, the report stated.
She also set a record for the most spacewalking time by a woman: 62 hours during nine excursions, AP reported.
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NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman called her “a trailblazer in human spaceflight.” “Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement,” he wrote in a statement.
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