Sunita Williams dances as her Boeing Starliner capsule docks with Space Station
As the Boeing Starliner capsule, containing Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and her crewmate Barry “Butch” Wilmore, safely docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, Williams broke into a dance.
As the first female pilot of a new spaceship on its maiden crewed test journey to orbit, Williams made history. On June 5, the 58-year-old and NASA astronaut Wilmore launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard the Boeing Starliner.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the mission, known as the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), is essential to approving the Starliner for frequent crewed trips to the International Space Station (ISS). Should it be successful, Starliner will be the second private spacecraft to carry humans to and from the orbiting laboratory, following SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
Having spent a total of 322 days in orbit on two prior space shuttle missions, Williams views this flight as yet another ground-breaking achievement in her extraordinary career.
She previously broke the records for the most spacewalks (seven) and the longest spacewalk duration (50 hours, 40 minutes) for a woman while on her ISS expeditions in 2006–2007 and 2012.
Following launch, Williams, Wilmore, and more than 500 pounds of supplies for the orbiting outpost will be carried by the Starliner capsule, which will stay docked with the ISS for about 26 hours.
After testing and confirming Starliner’s systems for around a week, the two astronauts are expected to return to Earth and make a parachute-assisted landing in the western United States.
Given that Williams is of Slovenian and Indian descent, her feat is particularly remarkable. Her father is Indian-American, originally from Gujarat, and her mother is Slovenian-American. On her previous spaceflights, she brought mementos from Slovenia and India as a way of honoring her diverse roots.
Williams and Wilmore’s groundbreaking trip onboard Starliner represents a critical step in extending humankind’s access to space through commercial partnerships, even as they continue to operate atop the International Space Station.
Williams’ reputation as one of the most accomplished women in space exploration history is further cemented by this.
