Indian-Origin Astronaut Sunita Williams Returns to Spacewalk After 12 Years

This is Williams' eighth career spacewalk and Hague's fourth, and the two spent about six and a half hours working outside the ISS. The astronauts wore an unmarked spacesuit for Williams, who was spacewalk crew member 2, and a suit with red stripes for Hague, who was crew member 1.

Indian-origin NASA astronaut Sunita Williams ventured into spacewalking after 12 years, exiting the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday along with astronaut Nick Hague. Dubbed US Spacewalk 91, the excursion will carry out much-needed maintenance and upgrades on the orbiting laboratory.

This is Williams' eighth career spacewalk and Hague's fourth, and the two spent about six and a half hours working outside the ISS. The astronauts wore an unmarked spacesuit for Williams, who was spacewalk crew member 2, and a suit with red stripes for Hague, who was crew member 1.

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For their adventure, the astronauts completed the following:

•    Upgrades to NICER: Doing upgrades on the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) X-ray telescope.
•    Rate Gyro Replacement: Replacing the rate gyro assembly to ensure proper orientation control for the ISS.
•    Maintenance of Docking Adapter: Replacing a reflector device of navigational data on an international docking adapter.
•    Future Preparations: Review of equipment and spaces that will be used for the near future maintenance on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

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According to NASA, the mission was essential in ensuring that the ISS continued working properly and remained for a long time.

NASA revealed another spacewalk scheduled for January 23 involving Williams and colleague Barry Wilmore. The pair will:

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•    Remove a radio frequency group antenna assembly from the ISS truss.
    •    Collect material samples from the Destiny lab and Quest airlock to examine possible microbial life on the station's exterior.
    •    Prepare a spare elbow joint for the Canadarm2 robotic arm in case future replacements are needed.

Williams and Wilmore, the first astronauts to fly aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, remain aboard the ISS nearly 10 months after what was planned as an eight-day mission. The Starliner, deemed unfit for human travel following safety reviews, was safely returned to Earth.

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The astronauts further delayed their return to Earth as NASA pushed back the launch date for SpaceX's Crew-10 mission to March 2025.

The astronauts are being kept a little longer in space because NASA has scheduled additional safety checks to carry out on the new Dragon spacecraft. "We left our families a little while ago, and of course, I want to go home," Williams said recently, adding, "but we have a lot to accomplish while we're up here."

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