Sunita Williams-Woman Space Astronaut of Indian Origin.

image source: Google

Many of you must have heard of Sunita Williams. I had discussed about Sunita Williams in my previous post when she had returned after six months in space.

Sunita Williams is an Indian American astronaut and a United States Navy officer who holds the record for longest space flight by a woman.

Well she is in news again. She, along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, parachuted in Soyuz TMA-0sM capsule through dark, cloudy skies and touched down at 7:56am local time and landed on the snow covered steppe 52miles northeast of the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan.

The crew had spent 125 days abroad the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex involving 15 countries and orbiting 250 miles above earth.

So what did Sunita and her crews do at the outer space for four months?

The crew conducted a number of experiments, including tests on radiation levels at the space station and research into the effects of melting glaciers and seasonal changes on Earth’s ecosystem. They also managed several visits to the space station by international and commercial spacecraft and conducted several space walks to maintain the station.

Sunita Williams visited India in September 2007 and went to her ancestral village Jhulasan in Gujarat. She was awarded the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vishwa Pratiba Award by the World Gujarati Society, the first person of India descent who was not an Indian citizen to be presented the award.

On October 2007, Sunita Williams spoke at American Embassy School and then met the Prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh.

She has expressed her desire to adopt a girl from Ahmedabad.